


As The Ocean Blooms

by luni



Series: it's no one's business but mine that all this love has been in vain [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anger Management, Angst, Depression, Drowning imagery, Friendship, Heartbreak, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Nightmares, Romance, Slow Burn, Social Anxiety, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, figure skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-10 13:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10439061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luni/pseuds/luni
Summary: "We can be wrong together-""I don't want to be wrong.Youmade me like this... leave me alone. Please."It started with Yuuri's unmarked skin, and anger making his blood boil.Then comes Victor, and he dreams of the ocean, swallowing him up.





	1. Dreamers, they never learn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **EDIT 19/04/17:** hello there! i fixed a few tags and rewrote the summary because i love spoiling my readers shoving future dialogue in their faces. as always, forgive me for errors and awkwardness: english isn't my first language but i try. hope you enjoy! ♥

Katsuki Yuuri knows he’ll never be in love. 

 

 

He first saw a soulmark when he was taking a bath at the age of five, covered in soapy bubbles: he spotted his mother’s mark, something that resembled a star, just below her collarbone. As she explained the meaning of those new and big words, _soulmate_ and _soulmark_ , Yuuri absorbed every word with genuine wonder in his eyes, pointing at his mother’s mark with a chubby finger: perhaps, if his mind were more mature at the time, he would have thought, _I want to be in love too._

Naturally, the thought of finding his own soulmate took very high priority, through the years, in his mind: boring lessons at school and the wait between figure skating training and ballet practice were the timeslots he willingly dedicated to such fantasies. He would wonder about their favourite food, preferred hobby, if they liked figure skating, if their wrists were smaller than his - he wondered about everything, both important and fickle. Yuuri loved his soulmate very much, an entity made of blurred features and weirdly specific dialogue, tailored to Yuuri’s preferences. Truly the lost half he was supposed to meet up with, bearing a perfect match of Yuuri’s soulmark, which was set to bloom anywhere on his skin on the day of his sixteenth birthday. 

At fifteen, knowing that the search for his other half was about to start, Yuuri became restless. He flew through the qualifiers for the Junior Grand Prix Final of figure skating, maybe naively hoping that his future soulmate could notice him if he did well on such an important competition: his coach Celestino was so proud of him, though, and ruffled Yuuri’s hair in the kiss and cry as his score, a new personal best, flashed on the screen. And that was a pretty good sign that things were going well for Yuuri: he returned to Detroit qualified for the final, with a heart full of unbridled pride and joy.

The night before departure, Yuuri hung a new poster of his idol, Victor Nikiforov, on the wall. It was a present from his roommate, Phichit: he is a figure skater too, so Yuuri immediately latched onto him. Cheery and supportive, Phichit picked up on his 'slight' obsession with the Russian top skater in no time and wasted no occasion to tease Yuuri about that; though he did go out of his way to buy that particular poster of Victor, long silver hair tied up in a ponytail and falling on his back, partially covering the sparkling dark blue fabric of the costume he wore. It was one of Yuuri’s favourite programs of his, and he might have gotten teary-eyed a little bit when he unrolled the poster and held it with shaky hands.

Phichit was already sleeping: Yuuri made sure to be silent as he took a couple steps backwards to admire his present, Victor Nikiforov’s profile a stark contrast to the dark background of the arena, a single blue eye looking right through him and staring miles and miles ahead. Somehow, it gave him courage: Victor was, and still is, Yuuri’s primary motivation to start taking the sport seriously. Thoughts of skating on the same ice as his idol would often fill his head and make him dizzy with anticipation; shamelessly, he wished Victor would notice him, he wished his idol would notice the work he puts into his step sequences, how he lands a consistent triple axel-

Realizing he was daydreaming again, he laughed quietly to himself. The poster of Victor Nikiforov still looked through him, unamused: Yuuri ducked his head and got ready for bed.

When Phichit greeted him the morning after, with a hug and wishing him good luck for the Final, Yuuri’s smile was wide: he could feel in every single part of his body, buzzing with excitement, that he was going to come back from the Final with a medal resting on his chest and a freshly bloomed soulmark on his skin. Confidence carried him all the way through the short program, where he scored another personal best and, once again, made Celestino’s eyes light up like never before. He knew he could do it, he knew he could show the world how much he _wanted_ to win: for once in his life, Yuuri was sure he would succeed. Almost everything he’s ever wished for was within arm’s reach.

 

 

But that was a few hours ago.

 

 

Yuuri discovers he’s unmarked on the twenty ninth of November, in a cold and bare hotel room, on the day of his birthday, and also the day of the Junior Grand Prix Final free skating. Stripping down in front of the full length mirror, he checks every single part of his body, muttering to himself that it’s not possible, it has to be _somewhere_ , but then again he didn’t even feel anything-

Falling to the floor, Yuuri breaks, quiet sobs bursting deep in his throat, making it ache. He wipes his nose on his wrist, almost snarling, anger seeping through flesh and bones: he’s never hated his own body before, no matter what everyone said about his pudgy stomach, his short sightedness, his frail fingernails. The lack of a soulmark, something he’s been waiting for almost his whole life, is downright insulting and it makes Yuuri so angry he starts shaking.

Time keeps flowing, no matter what Yuuri’s current situation is, and from a distant and rational place in his mind Yuuri realizes it’s time to go. Slipping in his costume, he can feel his anger subside and turn into a deep sadness that punches him square in the stomach. He works on autopilot, packing his things and heading to the rink in complete silence; Celestino asks no questions, just keeps reminding Yuuri that he’s come so far and he has to believe in himself, that he’ll pull through and he’ll make him proud regardless of score or placement.

Yuuri is rewarded with the disgusting mental image of his own unmarked body, and swallows down unhealthy amounts of bile as he sheds his jacket and launches himself into practice.

_What is there to be proud of?_

 

 

He ends in sixth place, with one of the lowest scores he’s ever received: anger stirs and kicks at his ribcage from the inside, threatening to break his body in half.

Celestino doesn’t question Yuuri’s refusal to perform at the gala or show up at the banquet, and dismisses everything with a surprised raise of his eyebrows. As for the press, he’ll deal with them himself: Yuuri is so grateful that he quietly listens to the stern voice of his coach without even blinking.

“I won’t say you did well, because that would be a lie. Just promise me you’ll work it out, on your own if you have to, and if you need anything just _ask_. I’m your coach, you know you can trust me.”

Despite the hint of disapproval in Celestino’s voice, Yuuri nods politely and excuses himself to his room: Celestino knows of his nerves, of the tight bundle of negativity that sits in the back of Yuuri’s mind and clouds his every step and judgment. He doesn’t ask about soulmarks, and wishes Yuuri a happy birthday before leaving for the banquet: he suspects that will wait until they go back to Detroit. Yuuri surely isn’t looking forward to that particular confrontation, but the temporary calm and quiet he’s been allowed is no small mercy: he truly appreciates the way Celestino lets him face his personal demons alone, trusting his strength and will to come out on top.

Before going to sleep at an ungodly early hour, Yuuri thinks of Hasetsu, of his family, his beloved dog Vicchan- he thinks of Victor Nikiforov, beautiful, talented, successful, bright blue eyes and dark red petals unfurled under the thin mesh of his most famous costume, and falls asleep.

He dreams of cracks in the ground opening up below his feet, he dreams of enormous dark blue waves - _the ocean,_ pulling him under and filling his lungs until they overflow, before he wakes up in a cold sweat, and cries, the way he didn’t allow himself to the day before.

 

 

Seven years later, it happens again.

It’s the same gut-wrenching pain, blooming in his stomach, its cold roots crawling up Yuuri’s spine, right after Mari ends the phone call.

_Vicchan is dead._

All Yuuri can think of is the softness of Vicchan’s brown curls, his black trusting eyes, the warmth of his small hyperactive body, his cute yawns as he laid in bed with him on the worst days when getting out of the bedroom wasn’t an option. There isn’t a single muscle in his body focused on skating, even if it’s the Grand Prix Final and he’s just fallen on the triple axel.

Eventually, the routine comes to an end. Celestino says nothing as Yuuri steps off the ice, stomping to the kiss and cry, ice clinging stubbornly to his trousers in a map of all his falls. Head held low, chin glued to his chest, fingers digging into his palms, Yuuri listens as they announce the score: the crowd is disappointed, he can tell, and Celestino scoots closer to him, speaking what are supposed to be comforting words, placing a strong arm around his shoulders protectively.

Yuuri can’t focus on a single sound. He isn’t even crying. He wishes he was- Vicchan _died_.

His beloved dog died, and Yuuri has been absent from home for five years.

_I didn’t even get to say goodbye._

“Come on, Yuuri,” says Celestino, his rough voice barely cutting through the white noise produced by Yuuri’s relentless overthinking. They dodge a small gathering of journalists, stopped by Celestino’s polite yet firm ‘please leave us be’, and walk to the side to watch the other skaters perform.

At least Celestino will watch: Yuuri’s back is glued to the wall, a pathetic show of downcast eyes and arms tight around his stomach, as if he could throw up right on the spot.

_I’ll never be able to hold him again._

Time flies and the pounding in Yuuri’s ears grows louder by the second: when the whole stadium roars as Victor Nikiforov glides effortlessly on the ice, Yuuri excuses himself to the bathroom. He comes out right in time for the medal ceremony, not bothered by the colourful smudges all around him: he’s grateful he left his glasses back in the locker room. Yuuri is sure he couldn’t stomach a clearer view of the podium, and his pride would surely eat at him from the inside in a litany of _it should have been me_ and _it’s not fair_.

_I’ll never receive daily Vicchan photos again._

Yuuri sighs, blinking back uncharacteristic tears of anger.

 

 

“I’m sorry. I failed,” is all he says, quietly, and ends the call.

  _I will not cry. I will not cry._

A sniffle is all that manages to get out of Yuuri’s mouth, before a loud bang to the door interrupts him. Excusing himself in English, Yuuri opens the door of the bathroom stall: Yuri Plisetsky, Russia’s Junior Grand Prix Final gold medalist, is standing right in front of him, all thin legs and sharp lines. His unblinking green eyes never leave Yuuri’s red-rimmed brown ones.

“Sorry again,” he tries, casting a quick glance to the large mirror above the sink: he can see that all the other stalls are empty, and Yuuri wonders why the boy chose his stall in particular to… knock at? That didn’t sound like a knock. More like a kick, if the rumours about Yuri Plisetsky’s colourful manners are true.

“Listen,” spits Yuri, pointing an elegant finger at Yuuri’s nose, almost touching it: he has to take a step backwards, flinching. “We don’t need two Yuri in the Senior Division-”

That’s when Yuuri scoffs, despite himself, despite his ragged voice and still wet eyes: Yuri blinks once, twice, then squares his narrow shoulders in a display of aggressiveness, spine taut as a bowstring. “What are you scoffing at?”

“You have a point.”

“What?”

Yuuri takes a step forward, hands curling into fists. Yuri studies him from behind blond strands of hair, painted lighter by the neon lights on the ceiling. There’s a hint of a blush on the tip of his nose, small crumbs of what looks like bread at the corners of his mouth: this is a boy who won a gold medal, got off the ice and shoved the first thing he found in his mouth, and never bothered to wipe his face or brush his teeth before going out in public. Yuri Plisetsky is still a little boy and, anxiety be damned, Yuuri won’t listen to this kind of talk on one of the worst days of his life- much less from someone who doesn’t even know what he’s talking about or how to wipe his own damn face.

“Congratulations for your gold,” he murmurs, all bite and no bark, walking past Yuri without even acknowledging a possible answer, bracing for the imminent outburst that never comes when the bathroom door closes behind him. All thoughts of Yuri Plisetsky are forgotten, but anger keeps prodding at his nerve endings relentlessly. He’s getting used to it, by now.

After a good twenty minutes, Yuuri has packed everything and is now making his way out of the arena, headed back to the hotel with a very worried Celestino in tow. He politely dodges announcer Morooka’s bewildered questions about premature retirement and going back to Detroit: Yuuri’s gaze shifts around, weary eyes resting on the small lively poodle to the other side of the glass, in his owner’s arms.

_I don’t want to think right now._

The poodle pants visibly, pink tongue flapping gently against his owner’s coat.

_I’m sorry, Vicchan. Sorry I can’t go home._

“Yuri.”

_That voice-_

Turning around with the faintest gasp, Yuuri sees him: Victor Nikiforov, dressed in his Olympic Team Russia tracksuit, walking side by side with Yuri Plisetsky, unfamiliar Russian words falling from his lips. Except for Yuri’s name, the same as-

Victor notices his staring. He spies Yuuri from the corner of his eye, beneath short silver locks and long eyelashes, and Yuuri gasps again (he’s so embarrassing, what is he doing!?). When Victor turns around fully he clears his throat, and waits, and hopes.

“A commemorative photo?”

Yuuri registers Victor’s question much later than he should have, and is stunned by the slight change in Victor’s expression, the softest crinkles under his eyes, as his smile morphs into something more uncomfortable: the same look he gives his fans when they ask him for photos the hundredth time in a day. “Sure,” he adds, perhaps identifying Yuuri as one of those very shy people who need to be nudged through life.

Closing his fist around the handle of his baggage, Yuuri turns away from Victor, ignoring Morooka’s reaction and Celestino’s pointed grumbling. Yuuri’s knuckles turn white as he walks outside, braving the mild snowstorm blowing on Sochi, and his heart stutters as Celestino catches up with him.

_It’s over now, isn’t it?_

“At least come to the banquet, Yuuri,” is all Celestino says, shivering in his coat. “I know it’s hard for you, but showing up is a sign of politeness.”

Between lying to Celestino to stay in his room all night, contacting Phichit to vent his sadness and anger, and calling his mother again to let her know he’s doing alright despite everything, Yuuri chooses to smother his frustrated screams into the pillow and rake nervous hands down his cheeks, in the privacy of his hotel room where no one will judge him. Then, he ends up not doing any of the aforementioned things and, instead, begrudgingly takes a shower: at least he can save face before he announces his retirement.

He’ll break the news to Celestino after breakfast. He won’t go to Japanese Nationals or Four Continents or even Worlds: Yuuri’s skating career is over, and leaves behind an amount of regret that, he’s sure, will end up choking him to death in his sleep.

 

 

It’s March and Yuuri is back in Hasetsu: the weather is much warmer than what he was used to in Detroit.

He misses Phichit’s company, his cheerful disposition, his complete lack of impartial judgment whenever it comes to Yuuri’s problems. He’s the only one who knows about Yuuri’s unmarked skin save for his parents and Mari, and he passionately talked Yuuri through his post-GPF depression for days and days, before Yuuri told him, _I’m going back home._

Of course, Phichit never tried to stop him: instead, he helped him pack everything, occasionally throwing around witty comments about his belongings that helped Yuuri loosen up considerably. Their goodbye at the airport consisted in lots of tears and sniffling and promises of blowing data plans FaceTiming at whatever ungodly hour of the day or night, and that’s why he misses him: reality looked a little less harsh with his best friend by his side.

Yuuri would try to contact him as he promised to do, but his phone’s been in aeroplane mode ever since he booked the one-way flight to Japan, for a very good reason: he never handled attention well, particularly from the press or his fans or whoever else decided it was time to voice their stupid opinions. Whatever the media has to say about his sudden almost-retirement, he doesn’t want to know: his mind is already a bad place as it is.

No soulmark, a laughable skating career coming to a sudden stop, all the stress eating and gained weight, and the lingering sadness that throws his sluggish limbs around the way it wants to: there is so much material to work on for them, and Yuuri is tired, and bitter, and alone.

Perhaps he’s run out of tears.

 

 

One of the first things he does, after paying his respects to Vicchan, soaking in the onsen, and politely denying Minako-sensei’s invitation to ‘at least watch how Victor does at Worlds’, is running off to Ice Castle.

Yuuri hasn’t talked to Yuuko in years, except the occasional phone call and text messages, but is happy to see that, despite the distance between them, not much has changed during the years. Her eyes still widen in adoration as he skates around lazily, getting reacquainted with the same ice he’s been skating on during all of his childhood and most of his teenage years. Yuuko always had faith in Yuuri’s abilities, and seems to have that same faith even now, genuinely cheering as Yuuri lands a clean triple loop. Smiling sheepishly, Yuuri glides towards her, gaze firm on the ice.

“Already done? I thought you wanted to warm up properly,” she says, tilting her head. Yuuko has always been perceptive of Yuuri’s jumbled moods, and would never miss an occasion to point out the discrepancies between his words and actions in her own polite way: this is one of the things that truly hasn’t changed. Yuuri, despite himself, raises his head and stretches his lips in a small, reluctant smile.

“You’re right. I did want to show you something,” he confesses, averting his eyes again. He can feel Yuuko is staring, her face probably scrunched up in concentration: Yuuri looks back up at her and is secretly amused by the way her lips part in confusion. “Please watch me.”

As Yuuri takes position at center ice, he hears Yuuko’s soft _this is-_ from far away.

Then, the music.

Yuuri skates as if he never gained those ten pounds in the first place: he glides effortlessly, and jumps, and transitions into step sequences with the same elegance as Victor Nikiforov. Perhaps, he thinks as he lands a flawless triple axel, he’s finally found his love for skating again. Perhaps he can still do it, he muses, weaving intricate patterns in the air with outstretched fingers.

_Maybe it’s not over._

When he skates like this, with complete abandon, fully immersed in the story he wants to tell, he can pretend that soulmarks never existed at all: he forgets about his own unmarked skin, the sting of placing last at the Grand Prix Final, the pain of losing Vicchan without even getting to say goodbye, the only occasion he’s had of talking to his longtime idol lost as suddenly as it came. It’s almost a perfect copy of Victor Nikiforov’s free skating program, _Stammi Vicino_ , if it weren’t for all the quads changed to triples and a bit more flexibility added to a few figures: this is what pushes Yuuri forward, what makes him come up for air again.

Yuuri stretches into the final position, looking up at the ceiling, breath shoved forcefully out of his lungs and into the chilly air surrounding him.

_It’s not over at all._

 

 

A few days after the video of Yuuri skating to _Stammi Vicino_ goes viral, Yuuri’s back slams down on the carpet at the entrance of the inn, courtesy of a very enthusiastic poodle that looms above him and whines happily, front paws digging into the softness of Yuuri’s stomach.

_Oh my God._

He would recognize this poodle - Makkachin - anywhere.

”I’ll make you win the Grand Prix Final,” says Victor Nikiforov a few seconds after, standing completely naked in the onsen, as he winks flirtatiously at Yuuri- who just stares at him, breath cut short, mouth agape and glasses askew.

It’s not the searing blue of his eyes, the damp ends of his hair, the graceful length of his arms and legs that steal a breath from Yuuri’s lungs: it’s the small, dark crimson rose unfurled on Victor’s chest, right above his heart that sets his lungs on fire.

Victor’s soulmark.

It’s nothing new: he flashed it for the first time at the gala exhibition of the first Grand Prix he won in the senior division, clad in a see-through dark blue costume, nude mesh stretched on the once smaller plane of his chest- the same costume he wore in that poster Phichit gave him years ago. Yuuri remembers watching the gala with Yuuko, both of them in awe at Victor’s daring. Since then, the world took its sweet time trying to put together pieces of an imaginary puzzle: who is Victor’s soulmate? Did he ever find them? Of course, the answers never came, and Victor’s charisma never suffered for it; on the contrary, it seemed to thrive and thrive, day by day.

Yuuri genuinely liked Victor’s soulmark, before: small and simple, a beautiful colour staining the perfection of his pale skin, the strongest contrast to the blue of his eyes.

Now he abhors it.

 

 

The days of Yuuri’s childhood that weren’t filled with skating practice were dedicated to ballet: for that, he has to thank ‘Minako-sensei’, as he calls her. A few years older than his mother, Minako once traveled all around the world as a dancer and has quite a big name for herself. It was her who pushed Yuuri in the direction of figure skating, and for that he’ll always be grateful.

He wonders what she is thinking now, staring at Victor as he unceremoniously gulps down mouthfuls of katsudon, under Yuuri’s equally transfixed stare. Probably the same ‘how is this happening’ that blares like an alarm in Yuuri’s mind.

“What do you think of Hiroko’s katsudon, then?” she asks, the widest smile pulling at her cheekbones.

“Delicious,” sighs Victor, chopsticks clattering in the empty bowl, long fingers quickly picking a few stray grains of rice off his chin. Victor Nikiforov being a messy eater surprises Yuuri to a degree, his cheeks flushed in adoration; said cheeks flush harder when Victor’s seemingly vacant stare flutters to him. “You said you usually eat katsudon after you win, correct?”

There’s something in Victor’s tone that doesn’t sit right with Yuuri, but he nods anyway. “Yes… it’s my favourite,” he admits, shifting on the cushion. Victor makes a non-committal grunt, picking up a chopstick and trailing its length with his fingertips as it’s the most interesting thing in the room.

“You haven’t won anything, though.”

Victor’s attention returns to Yuuri in a heartbeat, coupled with a pleasant smile that reeks of sarcasm: Minako gasps softly in disbelief at Yuuri’s side, though she doesn’t interrupt their conversation.

Making sure to put enough ice in his words, Yuuri squares his shoulders with a shaking breath. “That’s right. I’ve always failed.”

Apparently, Victor expected this reaction: his smile softens. “Not many people would be willing to admit they’re hardly worth anything.”

Minako shifts, a bewildered _what_ bursting out of her lips, but Yuuri is faster and places a hand on the table, effectively interrupting her. “Are you trying to get a rise out of me? For what?”

Now this, he clearly didn’t expect. Victor’s smile falls, mouth twisting in somewhat of a grimace. “But _you_ said that you’re a failure. I only pointed out that you haven’t won anything.”

The chopstick joins its twin back in the bowl, and the sudden noise coupled with the stab at his non existent self-confidence makes Yuuri flinch: the tips of his ears are getting redder by the second, and Minako excuses herself, though hesitantly. She can’t help but throw a glance over her shoulder at Yuuri’s slumped back, as if she could support him one last time before leaving the two of them to what was supposed to be a more private conversation.

Once Minako is out of the room, Victor hums, raking a hand through his silky locks as he studies Yuuri, who never turns his gaze away and waits for Victor’s explanation with bated breath, and a sharp twinge of irritation coursing down his spine.

“So?” he prompts, when it’s clear that Victor is lost in thought.

“I didn’t expect you to be… like this,” is all he offers, straight eyebrows drawn together. Yuuri clears his throat, bracing himself for disappointment.

Being a longtime fan, Yuuri should have seen the next words coming: he knows maybe more than anyone else that Victor is a world champion when it comes to surprises, too.

“I like you!”

Yuuri will ignore Victor’s heart shaped smile for his own mental stability. He releases a shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding, and the flush quickly spreads down to his chest. “What.”

Victor laughs to himself, crossing his legs and reaching for his phone previously abandoned on the floor. Yuuri, unashamedly taken aback, is about to ask Victor again for a decent explanation- and that’s when he spots it again: a single petal of Victor’s soulmark peeks out of the loose inn robe he’s wearing, and that is almost slipping down his shoulder. While it’s true that he could think many other things, after being treated to such a... display, Yuuri’s mind irrationally chooses to focus on that dark petal resting on Victor’s chest.

_Why not me._

Once again, Yuuri is angry: it eats at his liver, his lungs, the pit of his stomach, the back of his knees, the base of his spine.

 

 

(Victor’s eyes, blue peeking from behind silver, don’t miss the way Yuuri’s closed fist shakes on the table.)


	2. And either way you turn, I'll be there

Ever since Yuuri first saw Victor, all those years ago on the fuzzy old tv at Ice Castle, he’s been wondering about the kind of person he is off the ice.

During his childhood and most of his teenage years, Yuuri would follow every competition religiously, together with Yuuko: they would stare in awe at Victor’s prowess on the ice, all his jumps landed cleanly and his breathtaking step sequences. Eventually, for Yuuri, this adoration morphed into a more serious approach to the sport (and an unhealthy amount of posters glued to the walls of his bedroom - it took Mari weeks to stop snickering whenever she came in). Year by year, Yuuri’s desire to surpass Victor reached deeper in his heart: he realized, ecstatic after having skated a good short program at the Sochi GPF, that he wanted to skate on the same ice as Victor, no matter the result. Yuuri wanted to destroy the image he had in his mind, of a man so kind and polite and charming that he could only live on a pedestal, so far away from the rest of the world, so unreachable: he wanted to know him, to stretch his arms further and reach him in any way he could.

Turns out that Victor is nothing like Yuuri imagined.

Yuuri sincerely appreciates Victor’s efforts: thanks to his diet, he did lose most of the excess weight he put on in the last months, and he had pretty good judgement in forbidding Yuuri from skating until he got back into shape. The problem is that Yuuri never expected the sheer _brutality_ of Victor’s words during the first day of proper skating practice; he manages to keep his nerves at bay, nodding quietly at Victor’s harsh criticism after a supposedly ‘appalling’ triple salchow, something that “you really should learn to land properly, because how are you going to master all the quads if you can’t even land a consistent triple jump?”. Despite Yuuri’s best efforts, a faint, irritated groan pushes through his teeth anyway.

Much to Yuuri’s irritation, Victor is not like Celestino, who would sigh at Yuuri’s passive-aggressive rebuttals and keep going anyway. Instead he asks, “do you want to say something?”, perfectly styled hair at eight in the morning and gaze focused on Yuuri. There’s a challenge, in the blue of Victor’s eyes, that punches Yuuri’s pride straight in the face and overcomes any wall of politeness standing between him and Russia’s living legend.

“I didn’t think that was appalling. I just didn’t land a clean jump.”

Now Victor does sigh, and the way he smiles pulls awkwardly at his lips. “Isn’t that what you want to achieve, though? A clean program? That includes jumps as well, correct?”

Sweat glues Yuuri’s shirt to the middle of his back, but it isn’t what causes him annoyance: a lukewarm fire at the base of his throat is growing hotter by the second, threatening to push out words that he doesn’t mean to speak - words about Victor’s inexperience as a coach, about his uncalled for harshness and the way he looks down on Yuuri just because he can’t land clean triples every single time.

Instead of voicing those insincere thoughts, spurred by Victor’s rough honesty, Yuuri opts for the least convincing “yes coach” in history, and skates back to center ice. He pretends not to hear Victor’s grumbling, probably for the best, and reminds himself that it’s just the first day, that Victor is new at this and should probably be given some time to adjust to his new role. Swallowing down whatever trace of irritation that was stuck in his throat, Yuuri runs through compulsory figures again to calm down and clear his mind.

Later that evening, at dinner, Yuuri sits opposite of Victor as he always has during the past week: that’s what he points out to Victor, when he voices his complaints.

“I know! But it’s so impersonal,” he pouts, poking at his half-finished bowl of katsudon. Yuuri, mouth full of steamed vegetables, shrugs and gulps perhaps too hastily.

“It’s comfortable,” he corrects, choosing the next mouthful of food with critical eye. “This way we can look at each other when we talk.”

“You’re awfully cold sometimes.”

If the fullest bowl of katsudon in the world stood in front of Yuuri, he would ignore it anyway: his head snaps back up as he outright glares at Victor, who wears a companionable smile.

“Because I talked back during practice?”

Once again, Victor’s smile widens uncomfortably. “That, too,” he sighs, standing up and making a show of stretching his arms over his head. “Well, I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

As soon as Victor turns his back on him, bidding good night in a cheerful voice, Yuuri realizes he probably did something wrong: he doesn’t answer, guilt resting heavy on the back of his head, and eats the last of his dinner before following.

Makkachin greets him as soon as he steps into the room, and Yuuri crouches down to scratch behind his ears, greeting him in return: his eyes are fixed on Victor, though, as he sits on the bed looking at his phone, back turned to Yuuri.

“Victor… can we talk?”

There’s no answer, so Yuuri steps closer and sits on the edge of the bed, his back to Victor’s. “I… think I made a mistake today. I was too-”

“Look at this triple Salchow! _This_ is how it’s done,” says Victor, turning around all of a sudden and pushing his phone right into Yuuri’s face as he turns as well: it’s a YouTube video, he realizes - a video of Yuuri’s short program at the GPF. He did land a clean 3S, back then, and a beautiful one at that: his cheeks redden at the praise, fingertips tingling pleasantly.

“Thank you - but, I wasn’t talking about jumps,” objects Yuuri, lowering his gaze to his own hand, sheets tangled between fingers. Victor seems to pick up on that, pausing the video and scooting closer.

“I thought you were different,” he confesses, and Yuuri looks up, expecting to see another one of the endless facets of Victor’s smile: instead, he’s the one who looks down at his hand now, and his lips are shaped in something more reminiscent of a grimace. “Out on the ice you’re so open and expressive. Take the short program I was watching, for instance: it was so full of joy and happiness, and you conveyed it so well.”

Yuuri braces himself for the unavoidable ‘but’ that is bound to come, as Victor’s head comes back up and he directs that weird smile at him.

“I’m glad you accepted me as your coach: you’re a very good skater. I just wish we could be more than that.”

_What._

“What do you want me to be to you?” asks Victor, and Yuuri can swear his hands creeped closer to his own when he wasn’t looking. “You need someone, that much is clear. I want to know you, and help you in any way I can.”

Yuuri’s heart skips a beat.

_You could never do that. Not in a million years._

“I… appreciate it, but…”

Victor distracts him - he doesn’t reach for Yuuri’s hand, he doesn’t scoot even closer, his robe doesn’t fall open exposing more of his skin. It’s the eyes: wide, hopeful, melancholic, all kinds of emotion in every shade of blue.

As Victor’s mouth falls open, and he’s about to say something, then thinks better of it and closes it, that’s when Yuuri unconsciously thinks, _you have lovely eyes_.

“…you don’t need to be anyone else to me. Just… be my coach. Please.”

Silence falls between them, Makkachin’s panting a distant sound as they gaze into each other’s eyes, looking right past something uncomfortable and invisible, a wall standing in between.

Eventually, when Yuuri’s about to exit the room, a quiet ‘goodnight’ leaving his lips, Victor answers to what definitely wasn’t a question.

“I will,” he says, and Yuuri would never hear that tone of voice from Victor for months.

 

 

The next day, practice goes incredibly well: Victor is all smiles and laughs, and cheers at Yuuri’s equally renewed enthusiasm when he lands a convincing triple Salchow; the next day is also the day Yuri Plisetsky arrives in Hasetsu, courtesy of a suspiciously geotagged photo on Victor’s Instagram. As soon as he enters the rink he stomps past Yuuri, ignoring his greeting, and a stream of rapid-fire Russian leaves his lips, fully directed at Victor, who laughs it off and asks him, in English, if he could at least wait until practice ends before expressing his undying love for his favourite rinkmate.

(He snorts at that.)

Yuuri knows he has little to no competition in the field of feeling anxious over the smallest things, so it hardly surprises him when Yuri, despite his clear desire to bring Victor back to Russia, turns out to be way more pleasant than he thought he would: he empties the bowl of katsudon offered by Yuuri’s mother, and even thanks her, mumbling something about ‘delicious food’ and ‘never tasted something like this’; he accepts the small room they give him with no complaints, and clears his throat a bit too loudly as he nods, after Yuuri asks him if he enjoyed soaking in the onsen. All in all, except his rough words directed at Victor, Yuuri thinks he can get used to him.

Something still doesn’t feel right, though.

He’s positive that Yuri remembers their little confrontation in the bathroom all those months ago in Sochi: he can tell by the way he stares aggressively at everyone except Yuuri, and the curiosity found in his eyes when he’s caught staring but never comes forward to talk, limiting himself to quiet brief words in a tone that is somewhere between uncertainty and shyness. There’s something unspoken between the two of them, and while Yuuri has good experience in this field as well, he wishes he could reach out to him.

Sure, the way Yuri snaps at everything Victor says or does makes room for a few questions; but then again, Victor never snaps back. His patience seems unlimited, and Yuuri quietly wonders to himself how far he had come to test him just yesterday with his stubbornness: for all the words that Yuri spat at Victor in a mere three hours, the depth of their bond is plain to see.

An air bubble gets stuck in Yuuri’s throat as he sits at the same table as Victor and Yuri, who chat animatedly in English and switch between words and snorts and a few Russian curses here and there, judging by Yuri’s tone. It’s a feeling that Yuuri knows very well, and is honestly surprised to feel like this for no conceivable reason.

He can’t be jealous of Victor and Yuri’s bond - can he?

 

 

Yuuri’s throat seems to seize up as Victor, all smiles and cheery voice, announces that he will choreograph both his and Yuri’s short program - though they would have to show him what they can do with a public face off right at Ice Castle. Yuri seems to take it well: he makes sure that Victor agrees to do whatever the winner says, and that would mean going back to Russia and coach him if Yuuri were to lose.

There’s a nasty mixture of emotions brewing deep in his stomach, but Yuuri can make out the most important one as it’s the loudest voice in the room: he’s _afraid_.

“What about you, Yuuri?” asks Victor, bringing him out of his reverie. Seemingly unconcerned, he has no idea of the fire that his words sparked within Yuuri -

_(I want him to stay with me for as long as I want to)_

-and his smile grows quietly, a tinge of sadness to it, as Yuuri answers with both fists clenched at his sides, “I want you to be my coach until the Grand Prix Final and show me how to win.”

“Perfect.”

 

 

It’s more evident during practice: Yuri Plisetsky is definitely nothing like the boy who attacked him in the bathroom at the last Grand Prix Final.

“You have trouble with the quad Salchow,” he observes aloud one day. Yuuri, bent down to scroll the ice off his trousers, freezes and looks at Yuri with wide eyes.

“Uh.”

“I could give you some advice.”

Yuuri stands up and feels like he swallowed a whole ice cube. _What in the name of sanity._

At Yuuri’s visible bewilderment, Yuri scoffs and crosses his arms, roughness back into the deep green of his eyes. “Are you even listening? Do you want me to help you or not?”

 _That’s more like it._ Yuuri allows himself a small smile, and ducks his head. “Thank you. I could use some advice,” he says, lowering his voice enough that Victor, who is currently scrolling through his phone off the ice, won’t hear.

Yuri looks pleased by the answer, and clears his throat, tossing his head. “I won’t repeat myself so listen carefully.”

It’s not that Yuuri doesn’t appreciate the help, as Yuri says after seeing him fall on his behind for the fifth time in a row during what, according to him, should be _the simplest fucking thing_ : it’s that he’s bothered by the program Victor assigned him that morning.

He showed to them the skeletons of two very different programs, skated on different arrangements of the same music: _In Regards To Love: Agape_ , assigned to Yuri, and _In Regards To Love: Eros_ , assigned to Yuuri. While they both expected the contrary to happen, with Yuri liking the faster-paced program more and Yuuri finding it a bit hard to skate the way Victor showed him, Victor himself looked like he was having the most fun he had in days.

A part of Yuuri freezes at the prospect of dancing so seductively in front of everyone: it’s not something that he would ever do, and he knows he should try to surprise the audience more if he wants to come back to skating properly. Plus, he really doesn’t know where he should draw inspiration from, in order to skate about ‘eros’, to put on the ice the feeling of wanting something so hard you end up doing wrong decisions and plunge yourself headfirst into things without thinking about it.

Another part of himself, however, longs for the challenge and can’t wait to prove his worth to everyone, no matter the theme or how he has to behave on the ice.

Most of all, he wants to prove himself to Victor.

It’s not animosity that drives him to show his new coach how much he’s worth, and it’s not the inexplicable jealousy he feels towards the bond between Victor and Yuri: he briefly considered the option of disliking Victor, though he found out he was entirely wrong the day Victor helped Yuri up from a rather bad fall, and didn’t even blink as Yuri unleashed a stream of heated curses at Victor as if it were his fault. He didn’t answer, just looking at Yuri patiently and, once he finished ranting, quietly suggested he step off the ice to take a look at his leg for any bruises.

Yuuri could never dislike someone like that: it’s clear that Victor cares for Yuri, and Yuri, despite his harsh words and remarks, cares back with the same strength if not more. It’s clear in the way he pushes himself day by day, always practicing his jumps more than anything else, that he’s a fan of Victor too and wants to surpass him one day. Victor, instead of offering good competition, is offering to coach him at least until their face-off the following week.

It’s clear that Yuuri could never dislike someone like Victor Nikiforov - rather, he starts to seek his company and support more, especially after all the care he evidently puts into helping Yuri with channeling his ‘agape’. He’s not jealous, not in the least, he repeats to himself; but the way Victor’s eyes crinkle at the corners as he smiles at Yuri’s improvements day by day are something that Yuuri perhaps wants to see directed at himself, too. He doesn’t miss their dry ask-and-answer game from the first week together, before Yuri arrived: he finds he wants to deepen their relationship as student and coach, he wants to tug Victor off the pedestal Yuuri himself put him onto, and wishes he could show a warmer part of himself to a man who left his country and took a season off just to coach him, after a viral video and nothing else.

 _It’s dangerous,_ he tells himself everytime he ends up wondering about his bond with Victor. _You’re going to get hurt. You’ll ruin everything._

Yuuri, however, never listened to himself and surely won’t start doing it now: he channels those feelings, however dangerous may they be, in his skating. The change is jarring, he supposes, because after a decent run-through of the trickiest step sequence, Yuri flops on the bench beside him and takes a long swig from his water bottle, before directing all his attention to Yuuri.

“Looks like you found it.”

Playing dumb is the quickest way to get on Yuri’s nerves, and at the same time it’s the path of conversation that Yuuri prefers: it’s kinda like a habit by now, Yuri asks a question and Yuuri plays dumb only to be shut down by snide remarks - though a smile occasionally creeps up Yuri’s face and perhaps it’s the first genuine step towards a deeper bond between the two of them. Yuuri will not let this pass up.

“Found what?” he asks, already smiling: this time, though, Yuri huffs out a faint _heh_ and throws a glance towards Victor, who is now skating lazily across the rink, mumbling to himself.

“Your ‘eros’, whatever that thing is. I’m glad you found it. Now I won’t have to see you mope around anymore.”

Yuuri doesn’t answer and lets Yuri go, who stomps on the ice and barks at Victor for no apparent reason: wishing he could feel so bold to follow him and take part in the conversation, Yuuri just stays put and lets his shoulders slump as Victor and Yuri run through Yuri’s program for the fifth time that day.

 

 

Later, when Yuri goes to the bathroom for a quick break, Victor skates in Yuuri’s general direction, a tentative look on his face.

“Everything alright?”

Victor’s voice is cheery, his smile grows sincere on thin lips, and Yuuri takes a deep breath before answering. “I think… I think I found it. My ‘eros’. Did you- um.”

A soft laugh that sets Yuuri’s nerves on edge, as Victor interrupts him. “Yes, you did good today. I wanted to say something before we go back, though.”

Bracing himself, Yuuri clears his throat: of course, there’s always something wrong with his skating, in Victor’s eyes. When it’s not a jump it’s his ‘stiff’ step sequences, or something else entirely that seems to come out of his-

“I like that you get along with Yurio,” he confesses, and Yuuri snorts at the nickname Mari gave to Yuri when he first came to Hasetsu. While he rejected it at first, it’s now grown on him and occasionally forgets to correct the both of them growling _stop with that stupid nickname_. “He doesn’t have many friends or family, so it’s nice. I’ve never seen him so relaxed.”

Yuuri blinks away thoughts of a terrifying not-relaxed Yuri, and smiles back at Victor, all tension from eventual criticism completely gone. “He’s young, so… I thought he’d appreciate someone to talk to without putting up a front.”

This time, Victor’s laugh is different: he looks down, shifts his weight continuously, and Yuuri wonders if someone like him is capable of being nervous, because it totally looks like it. “I’d appreciate that too.”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t have to hide from me, Yuuri. I’m your coach,” now Victor’s eyes are full of _something_ as he looks up at Yuuri, “and you can trust me. If you opened up more, I could help you with more than skating.”

Yuuri opens his mouth to say something - anything, really, to answer the honesty that bleeds from those words, but he’s too slow.

“I could be… your friend,” tries Victor, and Yuuri suspects the faint blush on his nose is not due to the cold of the rink. Again, he has no time to answer, because Victor turns around and calls for Yuri - who is back and pointedly looks down on his phone, blade guards already on, turned away from them.

On the way back to the inn, across the bridge and under the scrutiny of a bright April sunset, Yuuri keeps his distance a few steps behind - blinking away tears of _something_ he can’t give a name to.

 

 

The night before the face off - Onsen On Ice, as Yuuko’s triplets named it under the scrutiny of a very approving Victor - Yuuri stands in front of a door.

It’s not the door to his bedroom: it’s the door to _Victor’s_ , and that in itself is a huge mistake to make. The haunting unspoken ‘thing’ between them seems to grow stronger by the day, and of course Yuuri could explain it to himself in another way, that perhaps he needs some advice on his _Eros_ routine, or that he wants to bid him goodnight and nothing else, that maybe Makkachin wants to sleep in his bed for a change - of course he can’t waltz in and say, _I’ve been thinking of you all the time during practice and I’m tired of not doing anything about it._

Before he can stop himself, he knocks: Victor gasps audibly, a rather startled “come in” welcoming Yuuri into the room.

Victor is sitting on the bed, still clothed in his favourite green robe: his hair is so damp and his eyes are so blue and wide and startled, just like his words, spoken moments before. Yuuri briefly wonders if he interrupted something, but waves the thought away as Victor unsheathes a practiced smirk. “I didn’t think you’d be the type to beg for help before the great day.”

This sarcasm is the flavour that Yuuri digests better, so he snorts and pulls at the hem of his t-shirt, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. “I just wanted… to talk. About something you told me when you just arrived here.”

No one and nothing interrupts him, least of all Victor, whose face turns serious as he nods, so Yuuri inhales deeply and just _goes_. “You told me you wanted to be more than a coach - and that you want to help me, so… we could do that. That’s… a good idea, actually. Sorry I rejected it on the spot back then.”

A weak laugh leaves Victor unfazed: instead, he tilts his head and studies Yuuri with more attention than before. “What do you mean by that?”

_It’s dangerous. You know it._

Another deep, shaky exhale, and Yuuri steadies himself.

_You’ll drown, eventually._

“I could use a friend,” he admits, his own voice sounding alien to his ears. “Another one, I mean. Maybe it’s stupid if you put it like that, but… we could be. Friends, I mean. I’d like to.”

Victor’s laugh is soft, and sincere, and there are no sharp edges to it, at all: in a second, all the tension gathered in Yuuri’s spine is released.

“You keep surprising me,” says Victor, and despite the simple choice of words Yuuri can tell that something different has unfurled somewhere behind his ribs.

 

 

He is slower to drown, in his current nightmare: there’s an unsettling feeling of peace in the way he breathes, and breathes, and the water fills his lungs once again - at least, now he can look up at the sky, and it’s so blue that it hurts his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> back again with a second chapter and boy was this one hard to write.  
> i believe i already said that updates would be irregular so... yeah good luck with keeping up lol
> 
> hope you enjoy!


	3. You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

Yuuri’s nerves are out for blood.

He paces around, the locker room suddenly growing smaller and smaller; if he turns away from the wall he can see Yuri stretching, headphones on, completely lost in his own world. At the other side of the room, Yuuri can see Victor’s coat as he leans against the wall - he’s too afraid to look him in the eyes, so his coat will have to do.

It’s the day of the competition: Yuuri had stabbed at his breakfast in weak protest, mirroring Yuri’s refusal to eat properly, and both of them ignored Victor as he went on and on about balanced breakfasts and skating better with a full stomach. The walk to Ice Castle was silent, yet charged with an electricity that made Yuuri’s spine tremble under his skin. Yuri, leading the way, didn’t even spout at Victor: not once.

Both of them are used to pressure and pre-competition nerves, though Yuri handles it much better than Yuuri ever did, and ever will: this particular competition, though, weighs on their shoulders as much as the World Championships.

_“You’ll do everything the winner wants! Deal!”_

_“Great- I love the sound of that!”_

At first, Yuri’s challenge and Victor’s enthusiasm instilled thick fear in Yuuri: his confidence had been at an all-time low back then, and the prospect of competing against Yuri was perhaps more frightening than his announced comeback and the expectations of the whole world: now he isn’t proving only himself to the world, he has to prove that Victor’s time won’t be wasted on him, not even on a single competition but through the whole Grand Prix.

It’s now a matter of minutes before Yuuko comes in, signaling that the competition will start: Yuuri opts for stretching too, trying to steel himself. It’s ironic that he’s fighting for something he never knew he wished for, and with a very close expiration date. He still wants to skate on the same ice as Victor, even now, and knowing that his ‘pause’ could be the first step leading to his retirement...

“Yurio-kun, it’s time,” announces Yuuko, after a quick knock to the door. Yuri removes his headphones immediately - _were they just for show?_ \- and sheds his Team Russia jacket, revealing Victor’s old costume from his last short program in the Junior Division, sparkling white fabric that contrasts heavily with Yuuri’s black costume: it was the one Victor wore the first time Yuuri saw him on tv, all those years ago.

 _The costume that started it all and might also end it, too,_ he muses, mind drenched in bitterness.

Both Yuuri and Victor follow Yuri out into the rink: Victor pats Yuri’s shoulder briefly as he puts his skates on, a murmured “davai” leaving his lips. Yuri answers in Russian, quick and brash, and slams his blade guards in Victor’s outstretched hand before skating to center ice; a lone thought takes form in Yuuri’s mind at the way Yuri shifts into his starting position, and Victor leans on the barrier, hands joined below his chin, taking a hesitant breath.

_They look perfect as coach and student._

Jealousy scratches at the back of Yuuri’s throat, and the starting notes of _In Regards to Love: Agape_ fill the silence.

Yuri’s most prominent talent, except the high, textbook jumps, is the way he glides on the ice, almost effortlessly: it’s as if his body lost all its weight, carried by arms fluttering like wings at his sides, thin legs stretching and bending and eventually building up speed to launch into a triple axel that, of course, is landed with ease.

The way the media talk about Yuri Plisetsky - the Russian Fairy, the ever-evolving monster, the Junior Prodigy, whatever nickname they will come up with in the next month - now makes complete sense to Yuuri: it could be the influence of Victor’s choreography, it could be his strong desire to win and bring the Russian Hero back to his own country, but all the praise for this fifteen year-old boy is well deserved. His jumps are nearly perfect, high and clean and consistent: Yuri doesn’t falter on his quadruple Salchow-triple toe loop combination, and immediately launches into a faster step sequence. He really is Victor’s rightful successor, the one who is worthy of his training, without a doubt- and then it happens.

Yuuri can see the small crack in Yuri’s program more clearly as he lands his final jump, a quadruple toe loop: the movements that follow are sloppier, somehow- no, scratch that, they look almost _mechanical_. Yuri ran through the last part of the program more times than Yuuri could count, it’s probably ingrained in his brain, and that’s why his moves look devoid of all feeling, that’s why his combination spin is slower, that’s why he strikes his final pose a full second after the music ends and he’s panting visibly.

For all the media can say about Yuri Plisetsky, they fail to mention perhaps the most important thing: that he’s young, and inexperienced, and still has room to grow and improve.

The jealousy that previously threatened Yuuri’s throat dissipates, his nerves quiet down, and as he removes his blade guards there’s not a single bone in his body that dares to shake: knowing that the winner of the competition would get to stay with Victor as his coach sets his nerves on fire but, after watching Yuri’s performance to the end, Yuuri feels that there’s a solid chance he could win, and this newfound knowledge fills him with confidence he thought he never had.

He doesn’t want to lose Victor as a coach. He might be demanding, occasionally rude, and is never fully satisfied by whatever Yuuri does; it would be stupid to say that Yuuri didn’t improve under his steel-like determination, though, and with weeks of training behind him Yuuri can appreciate all the anger he had to swallow down under the pretense of disliking Victor.

After years of pushing almost everyone away, Yuuri realizes it’s time to let some barriers down: and it can’t hurt to try with both Yuri and Victor - especially Victor, if he wants to win. It’s his chance to return, to show the world that he is worth whatever Victor put aside, that he won’t fail again and he can skate even better than he ever did. Yuuri _is_ afraid, because opening up to people means a higher possibility of being hurt: but he at least wants to try.

“Ready?”

Victor’s voice brings him back to reality: he’s in front of him, a calm smile on his face, but his unreadable eyes are searching for something.

“Yeah. I’m ready,” says Yuuri, glass-like determination quivering in front of Victor, who simply nods and tilts his head to the side.

“I look forward to your own interpretation of _Eros_.”

Chewing the inside of his cheek, Yuuri steadies himself. What will it be - a pep talk? An encouragement? A warning?

“Seduce me with your skating, Yuuri.” Grey eyelashes flutter down slowly, and back up again, unveiling darker eyes. “Take my breath away.”

It takes Yuuri a few heartbeats to walk past Victor, who stepped to the side (he follows him with the same dark gaze and never leaves the back of his head). Once he’s skated to center ice, he cocks his hips into the starting position and holds his breath for a few seconds, exhaling calmly.

_Who am I dancing for?_

The first few steps of choreography pull Yuuri in, limbs breaking out of imaginary restraints as the melody washes over him.

_I… am dancing for myself._

He shoots a determined look in Victor’s general direction - _I’ll show you my worth_ \- and glides off into the intricate step sequence, confidence growing at every move. Competitively, this program is tougher than Yuri’s: according to Victor, moving all the jumps to the second half of the program is a wise choice for gaining more points. Yuuri’s stamina helps, but he can feel his legs ache already after landing the triple axel.

_I can’t afford to be tired now. I have to show Victor that I’m not a waste of time._

Yuuri steps out on the landing of his next jump - a quadruple Salchow, no surprises here -

_No. Calm down. I can still do this._

Once again, his limbs flow free, arms twisting around him and legs lighter than ever. He can still do it.

_I want Victor to stay by my side._

Quad toe loop, triple toe loop combination, nailed-

_...I want to dance for him too._

Hot breath is kicked out of his lungs as he strikes the final position, the crowd cheering loudly for him, and him only. Yuuri spaces out briefly before remembering where he is, then skates back towards Victor, all the screaming and cheering drowned out by the expression he spots on Victor when he gets closer enough.

He’s _grinning_.

“You were wonderful, Yuuri!” he exclaims, a genuine heart-shaped smile lighting up his whole face. He throws his arms around Yuuri’s shoulders, tugging him closer; Yuuri catches a whiff of cologne before he’s pushed away, and looked straight in the eye by a very… critical? stare.

_I won. Right?_

“Let me point out a few things,” he murmurs, grip steady on Yuuri’s shoulders. He merely nods, and Victor-

“Why did you take so long to jump the triple axel after that sorry excuse of a spread eagle? And what _was_ that quad Salchow? You’re lucky you landed it - I don’t approve of your sloppy triple toe loop, you clearly have to work on your jumping technique and-”

“And you’ll teach me,” Yuuri interrupts Victor, and it looks like he just fell on his behind in the middle of competition: his fingers stop digging into Yuuri’s costume, mouth agape. “Right? You’re my coach now.”

Victor says nothing, and proceeds to hug him again: this time, burying his face into the crook of Yuuri’s neck.

Minutes after their exchange, Yuuri is standing alone on a podium built for two: Yuri is nowhere in sight.

  


 

He finds him later, after having taken a long shower: he’s sitting on the bench right outside the castle, phone in hand but gaze distant. His hair is tied up in a sloppy ponytail, a few strands escaping the hair tie's grasp; he probably didn’t even shower after the competition. Yuuri feels his heart sink, and walks up to the bench, sitting down. Yuri doesn’t acknowledge his presence, and keeps scrolling mindlessly, until Yuuri interrupts his brooding.

“Yurio-”

“Congrats.”

 _Well. That was unexpected._ “Uh… thanks.”

The following silence that falls between them is surprisingly comfortable: Yuuri, though, knows the side effects of brooding after a defeat more than anyone else, so he affords to break said silence, clearing his throat and scooting closer to Yuri’s now hunched form, elbows digging into his thighs, chin resting on both fists.

“I’m sorry. I think you’re a very good skater-”

“I could be better.”

“You keep interrupting me,” says Yuuri, almost sheepishly. “Can’t you listen? Please?”

He can see Yuri rolling his eyes, before answering with a grunt.

“I’m sure Victor won’t mind being your coach, too. You could stay with us.”

Yuri snorts, and he’s not amused: he’s glaring at Yuuri, anger flashing in his eyes. “What do you know about him? What do you know about what I want? _I_ am his rinkmate. You’re just a sorry excuse of a skater who’s grabbed his attention for pure, stupid luck.”

Suddenly, all the progress Yuuri thought they made crumbles under Yuri’s sharp words: something else is left stuck in his mouth, though, when Yuri stands up and grumbles about going back to pack his things.

“Victor is _my_ coach now. He’s not your rinkmate anymore.”

Yuri doesn’t miss a beat: “Yeah, have fun with that. I’m going back to Russia.”

“See you at the Grand Prix, then. Go take a shower first.”

To Yuuri’s bewilderment, Yuri laughs quietly: the speed at which Yuuri turns his head towards him, almost whipped by the sound, is honestly worrying. “What are you laughing at?”

“Tell that woman, Yuuko, to give you my number. You can practice your lame one-liners on me whenever you want.”

Yuri isn’t smiling, but something in his voice is different, and frustration is nowhere to be found in his eyes now. They walk back to Yutopia together, at a leisurely pace: once they cross the bridge, Yuri quietly tells him about that time Victor was late to practice and Yakov sent him and Georgi - another rinkmate, Yuuri supposes - to check up on him, only to find that he had been blocked by a gathering of hardcore fans to which he’d been too nice to refuse their completely reasonable offer of taking a selfie with _everyone_ and even signing all of their stuff. The way Yuri tells the story, monotone voice matched with colorful expletives and the occasional brief snort, is perhaps the funniest thing to Yuuri: his cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing, mirth filling the corners of his almost wet eyes.

He chooses to ignore the tension between Yuri and Victor. They barely speak to each other at lunch, and Yuuri guesses it’s something they should solve on their own.

When they part, in the late afternoon, Yuri doesn’t tell him a word before Yuuko drives him to the airport: he texts him a few hours later though, a sharp _you better work your ass off_ that makes him snort aloud.

He’ll miss Yuri. He knows they aren’t friends, far from it actually: but the walk back to Yutopia is something that, Yuuri is sure, he’ll never forget.

  


 

That evening, dinner - for two - consisted of katsudon. Yuuri half-expected Victor to laugh at that, telling him that he’ll have to work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for all the extra calories, but nothing of the sort comes out of Victor’s mouth. A few minutes past nine they make their way to their respective bedrooms, barely talking at all: it could be exhaustion catching up after a long day, but simple explanations never worked with Yuuri.

They stop outside Victor’s room, completely on their own: Mari offered to take Makkachin on a short walk, and Victor accepted with a sincere and tired smile. Yuuri suspects he has a lot of thinking to do now that his coach position is, at least to the two of them, official: paperwork takes much longer than a friendly competition, after all.

Yuuri is shaken out of his reverie by Victor’s quiet remark. “I liked your skating today.”

Chuckling awkwardly, Yuuri ducks his head. Critic sticks with him more than compliments ever could, so he’s momentarily confused by Victor’s statement. He recalls a lot of corrections and variations of ‘I didn’t like this’, so the confusion he feels is only natural, right?

“Um. Thanks.”

“I mean it. Yes, there are many things to improve,” admits Victor, and that brings out a sincere laugh from both of them, “but I was satisfied. I’m glad I came here, now.”

 _Wait a second._ “Now?” asks Yuuri, eyebrows drawn together. There’s heat, somewhere inside him, and he doesn’t know the cause or how much it’s going to grow: Victor’s words are so talented in bringing unknown sensations out of him.

Victor clears his throat, averting his eyes: it’s as if he can’t stand Yuuri’s sharp gaze. “You… were cold, when I arrived here. I thought I was the problem, showing up out of the blue without even contacting you in some way.”

Now, Yuuri can see what he’s getting at, and he knows this particular feeling pretty well: his nails dig into his palms.

“I don’t mean to offend you, I just want to say that, after what happened this morning, I’m relieved.”

Victor is smiling, and Yuuri can feel the beginnings of anger slipping out of his hands. “What happened?”

May has barely started, but the warmth between him and Victor makes Yuuri’s shirt stick to the small of his back. He didn’t realize how close they’re standing: Victor’s back is almost against the wall, and Yuuri’s clenching his fists, leaning forward with his whole body. For being a longtime fan, Yuuri is almost ashamed that he’s never noticed the twin freckles to the side of Victor’s nose, or how pretty he looks when he flutters his thick eyelashes and looks down at Yuuri- _what is he thinking?_

(Dangerous and irresistible.)

Tilting his head, Victor leans back until his shoulders hit the wall.

“I want to satisfy you, too.”

Bubbles of irregular breathing shiver down Yuuri’s tongue, as he racks his brain, looking for an acceptable answer. Victor’s gaze wanders, his breathing is steady, and it appears he’s waiting for Yuuri’s words - words that never come, so he walks past him, the warmth in his eyes flickering weakly.

“We’ll start working on your free skate tomorrow,” is all Victor says, and Yuuri can’t remember ever hearing that tone of voice from him. It’s not sad, or angry, it’s…

“Goodnight, Yuuri.”

“Goodnight.”

Of course, he answers to a closed door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter but bear with me, things are about to get juicy heh heh  
> thank you for reading! your kudos and comments mean so much to me, it's what keeps me going ♥ hope you enjoy!


	4. Come slowly to me

“Did you think of a theme for your free program?”

Yuuri, who is currently busy putting his skates on, freezes. Brows drawn together, he frowns at the ground and admits, “not yet.”

Victor flops down onto the bench opposite, sighing. “I don’t want to pressure you, but you should decide as soon as possible. And we have to find the right music too - I could ask a few composers I know, if you’d like.”

The usual excitement coursing through Yuuri’s body, moments before gliding on the ice, takes a step back and makes room for a dull ache in his stomach. He half-expects Yuri to barge in and shout something offensive to Victor, then to focus his attention on Yuuri, gifting him a sarcastic remark: the thought pulls pleasantly at his throat, and Victor notices the slight change in his expression.

“What did you think about just now?” he asks in a conspiratorial tone, leaning in as if other people could listen - which is highly unlikely at six and a half in the morning.

“Uh, it was nothing. Really.” Swallowing, he buys some time to change subject, pulled in by Victor’s all-knowing smirk. “I don’t know, actually. About the theme, I mean. My former coach used to pick it for me.”

Victor’s eyebrows quirk uncharacteristically. “You mean Celestino?” he asks, squinting. “You liked him as a coach, right?”

“Yes, but… could we drop this? I’d rather start practice.”

Despite Yuuri’s sharp tone, Victor’s eyebrows don’t budge: his gaze isn’t provoking Yuuri as it usually would during their small confrontations, rather it seems to be searching for something. Eventually, Victor speaks up, and his tone is very different from what Yuuri is used to hear. “Did you part on good terms?”

Yuuri really, really wants to tell him that everything’s under control and it’s none of his business and they should start training, but at the same time Yuuri really, really doesn’t want to lie to Victor: he’s his coach now, he has every right to know about Yuuri’s competitive past, and _nothing_ seems to be under control anymore, anyway.

“I… don’t think so,” he confesses, avoiding Victor’s eyes as usual when the conversation shifts into more personal territory. “I told him about my plans so suddenly, he didn’t like it much… Phichit says it’s all in my head, as usual, but I don’t know if I can trust him on this one.”

Feeling his cheeks and ears on fire, Yuuri goes back to tying his skates: Victor is quiet for the entirety of the process, and as Yuuri stands up he hums, catching his attention.

“Phichit would be your rinkmate from Detroit, right?”

Yuuri nods, most of the tension in his shoulders released. “He’s my closest friend. I usually talk to him about this stuff.”

Which is partly a lie. Yuuri never willingly talked about his problems to Phichit. It was always the other way around: Phichit asking deliberately what was wrong, with Yuuri telling him half-truths, and smiling at Phichit’s comforting words and simple solutions. It’s not Phichit’s fault of course, on the contrary: he helped Yuuri exactly how he wanted to be helped, with a few easy words and a sudden change of subject to follow. It just happens that Yuuri’s problems have very deep roots that he doesn’t feel like poking at.

“Well,” exclaims Victor as he stands up as well, interrupting Yuuri’s thoughts. “I know what we should do now. Let’s start with practice!”

Yuuri wonders, later in the morning, if Victor’s apparent plan involved grueling and merciless jumping practice right from the start, and if his minuscule attempt to open up served some purpose to their relationship.

_Probably not._

 

At dinner time, words tumble out of Victor’s filled-with-rice-and-pork mouth.

“Yohf fhem will be lofh!”

“Excuse me.”

Chuckling, Victor swallows and puts his chopsticks down for dramatic effect. “Your theme will be love! For both the short and free program. What do you think?”

Yuuri picks at his untouched bean sprouts, coupling his deep sigh with a shrug. If he looks up, Victor’s ecstatic expression will make him falter; he steels himself before answering in the most adequate way he can.

“It’s a good theme,” _and the thing I want the most,_ “but I’m not the right person. I… can’t do it.”

A mouthful of dreaded bean sprouts busies Yuuri’s mouth, enough to prevent him from cringing at Victor’s affronted tone. “Why would you say that? I think it’s perfect. And you look like you need it.”

_Yeah, right. Except I don’t._

“Can’t I do something else?”

“No,” says Victor cheerfully, going back to his bowl of katsudon, ending the conversation. Maybe it’s the detestable consistence of the sprouts mashed between his teeth, maybe it’s the stress of the day catching up to him: Yuuri slams his chopsticks on the table, and forces back open the conversation Victor closed mere moments ago.

“Yuuri?”

“I don’t want my theme to be love.”

“Now you’re overreacting-”

“ _I’m not overreacting,_ ” he spits, standing up. Victor’s eyes burn the back of his neck as he walks out, stomach full to the brim and a searing itch spreading all over his skull.

Yuuri snorts bitterly at himself, sitting on the steps at the front entrance of Yutopia: how in the world is someone like him supposed to represent love through his skating? Why should he even try to, if it’s a shape in which he doesn’t fit? Angry at himself and Victor, he clenches his teeth as soon as faint footsteps draw closer.

“Yuuri? I… Can we talk?”

A toss of his head is the answer, though Yuuri has to look away from Victor as soon as he sits beside him: as much as he’d like to, Yuuri can’t hide the pleased smirk on his lips at the sound of Victor’s voice, dripping with guilt. Briefly, his own mind reconfirms to him that he’s a horrible person for enjoying this kind of situation, though it’s nothing new. Still he should do something, because the way Victor fidgets with the knot of his robe is the most irritating thing and it’s driving him up the wall.

“Back when I was in Detroit, a rinkmate fell during practice and we had to bring him to the hospital.”

_There goes the brain filter. Good job, Yuuri._

Victor’s head snaps towards Yuuri, though he can’t see how his expression has morphed, because his gaze is set straight ahead, making it easier to pour his heart out.

“There was this girl, another rinkmate, who was worried sick for him. So while we were waiting for news she… tried to hug me. And I pushed her away. Physically.”

A low whistle, and Victor mirrors him, staring straight ahead as well. “Sounds like something you’d do.”

Yuuri has to snort at that, releasing a bit of tension from the tight lines of his shoulders and spine. “I never talked to her again. I felt so bad - she’s a composer, too, so she could have helped with my programs, but…”

“You feel guilty because she’s a composer and you lost potential help?” interrupts Victor, a chill in his tone that sets Yuuri’s ears on fire. “Or because you hurt her?”

Regretting the whole conversation already, Yuuri is not surprised to feel the pinprick of tears. The sun is setting lazily, casting an orange glow that hurts his eyes and, for whatever reason, makes him feel nauseous and on edge.

“I know I’m bad with people,” he murmurs, voice shaking at the corners. “But I can’t control it. I’ve been like this for a long time.”

_I’ve been angry since I was sixteen._

Victor hums, leaning back on his elbows. Yuuri distantly thinks that it’s a very odd view: the two of them sitting on way too small steps, talking about feelings, of all things.

“Of course. That’s who you are,” says Victor, uncertain voice treading carefully. “I don’t know what to say. I feel like the personification of a self-help book.”

They both chuckle at that, as a faint breeze passes by and ruffles their hair; Yuuri shivers. “I’ll try to be better then. A better student and a better… friend. I guess.”

As Yuuri turns to look at Victor, he finds himself reflected in the clear blue of his eyes, morphed into the brightest shade Yuuri’s ever seen, under the warm sunset glow.

“I’d love that. But I think I’d love to know the real Yuuri more.”

“We’re going to catch a cold if we stay out here any longer.”

The smile that follows allows the crinkles at the corner of Victor’s right eye to show - the left one stays guarded behind wind-mussed hair. He says nothing, following Yuuri back inside.

 

“ _Yuuri! It’s been so long! Where were you?_ ”

Yuuri smiles at Phichit, holding his phone in front of him, elbows resting on his desk. “Hi Phichit- sorry, I… was very busy.”

Phichit’s high-pitched laugh is somewhat garbled by the phone’s speakers, but Yuuri finds it comforting anyway. “ _Yeah, I noticed. Actually, everybody noticed- Yuuri, Victor Nikiforov is your coach, how did you even do that!?_ ”

“I did almost nothing?” Yuuri chuckles too, wondering how his laugh sounds over the phone. Remembering the true purpose of the video call, he clears his throat: Phichit obviously picks up on it, thick eyebrows quirking up. “ _Want to tell me something? I’m listening!_ ”

“Uhh, do I have to… okay. Okay. Could you give me an e-mail address? If you still have it, of course-”

“ _Yuuri, take a deep breath and start again because I think I’m missing something._ ”

Laughing together with Phichit, Yuuri realizes he misses Detroit. It’s not where Phichit currently is - he’s moved back to Thailand with Celestino, he learnt a few weeks after he returned to Hasetsu - but being able to talk with his friend brings back memories he didn’t even know he had made in the first place.

Thanks to the small confession he made to Victor that evening, Yuuri gathered enough courage to call Phichit and ask for the composer’s e-mail address, in hope of contacting her (and hopefully be forgiven). Yuuri shrinks when Phichit points out how horrible he is, to not even remember her name: but still, he’s trying to patch up things and it’s a start.

Thankfully, she answers mere hours after: having established that she _forgot_ about Yuuri pushing her away, and that she held no grudges against him - further confirmation that dealing with people is on another whole planet for him - they talk about the music for the free program. Yuuri sends her a few pointers regarding time limit and his personal preferences with instruments, and she tells him it’ll be ready in a week or maybe even less, thanks to a drafted piece she has in store that is, according to her, perfect for what Yuuri wants to do.

In the following days, Victor trains him almost exclusively on jumps: Yuuri acquires the very useful ability to doze off in the shower, his quad toe loop has near perfect success rate, and he has landed the quad Salchow a couple of times.

The evening the musical piece arrives, Yuuri barges in Victor’s room and tosses his earphones in his face, apologizing distractedly at Makkachin for waking him up. Victor, rubbing his eyes, complies with a sleepy groan; though as soon as the music starts playing, Yuuri can see the changes in his expression. He guesses the song’s reached its peak when Victor points a finger at his mouth, releasing a small, amused _wow_.

“This piece is really _you_ , Yuuri,” he tells him when the song is over, handing him back his earphones. At Yuuri’s questioning look, Victor runs a hand through his hair and with the strangest smile on his face he says, “it’s so melancholic, but beautiful all the same.”

They’ll start working on choreography first thing tomorrow, and Yuuri nods at Victor’s decision, cheeks and neck flushed red.

(How can someone blush this much?)

 

“No, no no no - you’re supposed to hold it in your hands, raise it up towards the sky, then do this,” Victor opens his arms wide, slowly and gracefully, “and that’s how you’re starting the program. You have to gather all the love you can feel into your hands, and show it to the world.”

Yuuri can understand, to an extent, the love he should portray with _Eros_ ; this one, though, proves to be very difficult to grasp right from the starting position. “Yes, yes- can I try again?”

“Go ahead. … No! No, Yuuri, I meant like this,” now Victor cups his hands at chest height and raises them up slowly, past his chin. “I think you should go slower than this. You have to show how frail this love starts out, that you have to hold it yourself, to cradle it until it grows strong enough to support itself on its own. Got it now?”

Having next to no experience in creating choreography from scratch, Yuuri wonders if Victor is being corny or professional: of course, for being a starting position it’s lovely and he likes Victor’s reasoning behind it, but _what is the world going to think. I’m not as graceful as he is_.

“I think so, yes. But, what kind of love am I going to portray? You said there are many different types…”

Victor’s grin is wide, lips stretching in a small heart around his teeth. “I thought you’d never ask and you’d just go with whatever I said. You’re the best student!”

“I’m the only one.” _For now_.

“Details. To answer your question - it’s nothing like the selfish, visceral love you portray in your short program: it’s a different kind of love, and while I am sure you experienced it more than once, you have serious trouble recognizing it before it’s too late. Take the starting position: you’re supposed to gather it in your hands, and look after it until it grows and grows and it can stand on its own and become a part of who you are.”

Rather than finding practical examples of the love Victor is talking about, Yuuri finds himself entranced by Victor’s words and how serious and passionate he looks when he’s playing the part of the perfect coach. His love for skating is something that Yuuri wishes he could feel again, instead of its phantom memory that tugs him across the rink by force of habit.

“So it’s like… my love for skating?” he tries, scratching at his head with gloved fingers.

Victor clicks his tongue and chuckles and closes his eyes - _he’s so expressive -_ taking perhaps too long to open them. “We’ll practice this starting position until I’m satisfied. In the meantime, think long and hard about what kind of love I was describing. Look closely inside of you.”

Running through the opening choreography until his arms ache, Yuuri bitterly thinks he’s perhaps too full of negative emotions for any kind of love to take form inside him - he also wonders if Victor’s choreographic words rubbed off on him a bit.

 

 _I won’t_ , is what Yuuri tells Victor while they walk back to Yutopia in the evening: he won’t call Celestino to make things clear between them, definitely not, because it’s _dangerous and scary_. Victor laughed with concern at Yuuri’s refusal, trying his best to hint that maybe, as Phichit always says, ‘it’s all in his head’; this time, Yuuri is positive he’s right, and no one can change that.

Except Celestino himself. Because Yuuri _does_ call him, later when everyone is, he thinks, sleeping soundly.

“ _Yuuri, ciao! How are you?_ ”

Truth be told, Yuuri was never happier to be wrong.

Turns out that Celestino never held it against him, that he was worried he would never come back, instead: and that he was relieved when the news of Victor Nikiforov being his coach made it all the way to Thailand.

“ _I have nothing against him, but watch out anyway. Victor is a good man, is what everyone says, but don’t do everything he wants, ok? If he gives you trouble call me. Poi ci penso io a lui_.”

Yuuri smiles, playing with the hem of his shirt: he knows Celestino is mostly joking. He had been his coach for years, he confronted a good part of Yuuri’s problems and never treated him like a broken toy, or a wrong person. There’s genuine concern in Celestino’s gruff voice, and it fills Yuuri with warmth.

“Thank you, Celestino. Really. And sorry-”

“ _Yuuri, if you say sorry one more time, ti faccio ‘na lavata di capo che non te la scordi più. Okay?”_

Warmth, again: laughter, too, and the same happiness he feels when he FaceTimes with Phichit.

The morning after, before breakfast, Victor is too sleepy to process and answer Yuuri’s sincere thanks for ‘yesterday’, thankfully: Yuuri isn’t sure he could handle a full day of Victor gloating and repeating ‘I was right and you were wrong’, because it sounds like something he’d definitely do.

Yuuri trips on his skates when Victor shouts, out of nowhere, _so you DID call Celestino!,_ and his laugh as Victor helps him back up is sincere, and bright.

 

Victor owns a small notebook with crumpled edges and a washed-out teal cover, full of various doodles. He dedicates five whole pages to Yuuri’s program, all kinds of numbers and words filling every space at disposition.

“I was thinking about this jump,” he says, pointing at the second bullet point, still empty. “It should be a triple because we’ve already put a quad in the first combination. A Lutz, maybe?”

Lips pursed in thought, Yuuri wipes his face with a towel and reaches for his water bottle, hesitating with its tip pointed to his chin. “Why not another quad? I could do the Salchow.”

As Yuuri drinks, Victor’s gaze slides down the length of his bobbing throat. “So straightforward. Why the Salchow? You can’t land it reliably in competition.”

The half-full bottle of water crumples slightly in Yuuri’s grasp, as he puts it down; Victor’s eyes are back up in a blink. “Yurio gave me a few pointers, actually. I still have trouble with it, but I can learn.”

“You look confident.”

Yuuri’s throat is dry, water be damned. “I am.”

Chuckling, Victor’s attention goes back to the momentarily forgotten notebook. “Okay. So, you want the Salchow,” he murmurs, scribbling down a quick ‘4S’. “I’m glad Yurio actually helped you. He looked like he was going to throw up when I asked him to give you advice on the Sal…”

The sharp burst of breath that interrupts Victor comes out of Yuuri’s parted lips with a force that startles both of them. “You did what?”

Yuuri is not angry with Victor, he realizes, as Victor’s lopsided smile grows and grows and the pieces of the puzzle come together, fitting perfectly.

Yuuri is not angry with Victor, because - now he understands - he’s helped him with _that_ kind of love ever since he assigned him _Eros_. Calling Phichit after weeks of silence, getting back in touch with the composer, making things with Celestino clear, building a friendly relationship with Yuri-

“I get it,” he says, absolutely breathless, because Victor is a creature of wonder and surprises and really, how could he be so _blind_. “What I should portray with the free program. I get it now.”

He wants to say, _thank you for teaching me about love_.

He shouldn’t, because it’s dangerous. So, he doesn’t, and Victor’s smile keeps growing as he straightens his back and proclaims they should start working on his quad Salchow immediately.

That evening, Yuuri sends a text message. Keeping his phone close as he tucks himself in bed, he finds a smile pushing into his cheeks, an uncharacteristic giddiness coursing through his exhausted body: he hardly remembers the last time he felt like this, so used to the bitterness of his age old friend, the anger that guides him ever since he was sixteen and supposed to be guided by love instead.

When his phone lights up, Yuuri reads the answer with half-closed eyes and his smile stays in place, even after he dozes off.

 

 _[katsudon]_ _  
_ _Hi Yurio! How are you doing? I landed the 4S twice today! Thank you again_

 

 _[Yuri P]_ _  
_ _glad you fall on your ass less often now_

 

“How do you feel about cantilevers?”

There are good training days and bad training days.

“I don’t know, I never liked them that much.”

This is a _very_ bad day.

“Alright, no cantilevers.” Victor writes something on his notebook and hums, deep in thought. They’re having trouble with the slowest section of the music, and Yuuri can’t seem to land a single quadruple jump today, so tension is at an all time high between them: even if Victor suggested they both work on the few remaining holes in the program, everything Yuuri comes up with isn’t good enough, apparently, and gets promptly discarded by Victor who yes, does know better, but only to an extent and Yuuri is very tired and irritated. “An Ina Bauer, maybe? You’re flexible enough to pull a nice one off, I think.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Victor’s frustrated sigh crawls down Yuuri’s spine like a sudden scream would. “I understand that you’re tired, and you don’t like this part of the program at all-”

“Who said I don’t like this part? I do like it.”

“No you don’t,” shoots back Victor, putting his notebook down on the bench. “This part is supposed to represent the moment you embrace all the love and support that people give you, all of it. That’s the problem - you embrace nothing at all, and it shows.”

 _We’re both irritated, I see,_ thinks Yuuri, as a warm, itching feeling spreads all over his skin. “It’s not something I can understand so well. Just tell me if I’m not meeting your standards.”

“Fine. Right now, you aren’t.”

Blue, unrelenting eyes keep staring, and staring, until Yuuri’s blood boils and he flops onto the bench, untying his skates.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” murmurs Yuuri, fingers shaking as he puts his sneakers back on. “I’m done listening to you.”

As soon as Yuuri says that, regret punches him in the stomach: his gaze snaps up involuntarily, meeting with Victor’s raised eyebrows and parted lips. Unable to stand looking at him like that, Yuuri stands up and leaves, heartbeat going at breakneck speed.

Back at Yutopia, Yuuri skips dinner. He holes up in his room, sitting on the bed with his arms covering his stomach, on edge as if someone could come in anytime. To say he feels guilty for talking back would be an understatement: Victor came home a good hour after him, dishevelled and out of breath. He probably skated it out - and that’s when the most dangerous part of Yuuri’s mind comes in, snickering, because _he could be training for next season right now, but you’re holding him back. And you’re not even worth a minute of his time, just look how you treated him before._

It’s barely a quarter past eight, but Yuuri goes to sleep anyway, feeling drained by the heavy weight resting in the pit of his stomach.

 

He wakes up to a pool of drool in the crook of his elbow, and a tongue licking all over his face.

“Makkachin, stop!”

Victor’s raspy voice comes right after, and Yuuri’s sleepy mind takes a while to connect the dots. Feeling guilty even towards Makkachin, he tugs the sheets over his head and turns on the other side, facing away from them.

Cooing something in Russian to Makkachin, Victor sits down, his weight collaborating to the near constant creaking of Yuuri’s old bed. “It appears Yuuri doesn’t want us in here,” he observes aloud, in English: Makkachin whines, laying down against Yuuri’s back. “We’ll just stay here and keep him company, alright? He needs it. Okay, Makkachin?”

It’s not Victor’s constant talking, that gets to Yuuri; it’s not his deep voice, the occasional chuckle here and there, Makkachin’s snoring, the morning light that slowly turns into afternoon light and spies through the fabric of Yuuri’s sheets, it’s not the fact that they’re both on Yuuri’s bed and have been for hours with empty stomachs and without taking a bathroom break, and it’s not even the occasional memory of Vicchan’s soft fur, in which Yuuri buried his face whenever this kind of days came and wrecked him.

The realization, is what breaks Yuuri.

It’s soft, a feeling that tiptoes and knocks gently at the back of his skull, before sending shivers to run down his spine, and filling his eyes with tears.

Victor cares about him more than a coach should. He wants to be his friend, a shoulder to cry on, his center when he spins away - and most importantly, the missing piece of Yuuri’s free program.

In his own way, the way that wasn’t prohibited to him when he turned sixteen, he loves Victor with the same love he has for his family, for Phichit, Celestino, Makkachin, and even Yuri, and the same way he loved Vicchan.

Yuuri cries quietly, curling up under Victor’s warm hand, resting on the shape of his bent legs. He murmurs something in Russian, and Yuuri, without even knowing why, cries harder.

 

(It’s after going to the bathroom and having lunch at three in the afternoon that Yuuri stops him, in front of his room. He throws his arms around him - _so this is how Yuuri hugs_ \- only to retreat almost immediately, mumbling something about personal space and ‘shouldn’t-have-I’m-sorry’.)

(It’s after looking Yuuri in the eyes, red-rimmed brown, blinking before the visible warmth on his cheeks and the tips of his ears and down his neck and a bristling, dangerous heat resting under his skin.)

(It’s after Yuuri apologizes, ducking his head, but circling Victor’s wrist with a hesitant, sweaty hand.)

( _For a minute there, I lost myself._ )

(It’s right now.)

(Victor falls in love, and he falls hard.)

 

_Cup your hands, raise your arms to your chest, then upwards, open them up to the whole world._

“So the last jump should be another quad toe loop? Isn’t that repetitive?”

_Quadruple toe loop-double toe loop combination._

“It’s supposed to be the big moment, the final jump! You’re not consistent like Yuri, you tend to land the last jump more often than the first, so it works!”

_Quadruple Salchow._

“It’s like you’re coming back to the start, but stronger than before, after accepting everyone’s love. How do you like it?”

_Combination spin, triple loop._

(That warmth again, spreading all over his face.)

_Spread eagle, Ina Bauer, triple axel, triple flip._

“I like it. Let’s do that.”

_Triple axel, single loop, triple Salchow combination._

“That’s what I want to hear.”

_Triple Lutz, triple toe loop combination, step sequence, quadruple toe loop-_

 

“Anyway, Yuuri - did you think about the name?”

“...not really. Um. What about _Yuri on Ice_?”

_Combination spin, ending pose-_

“Sorry, no, scratch that- it’s like, the first thing that came to mind.”

_Right hand on the heart, left arm outstretched, reaching out._

“No, no. I think it’s perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mystery solved, you get victor’s pov in brackets!! how convenient right  
> [this](http://pasteboard.co/2Jt8rH6Vr.jpg) is a cantilever by the way  
> i loved celestino’s dialogue in this chapter, so here’s a quick translation:  
> \- poi ci penso io a lui = a loose translation would be "i will deal with him", keep in mind that here in italy dialects have a strong impact on our grammar and how we build sentences! a more "correct" form would be: "a lui ci penso io"  
> \- ti faccio 'na lavata di capo che non te la scordi più = grammatically incorrect even in italian, but it's so charming in a way lmao! it means something like "i'll scold you in a way you'll never forget". once again celestino's dialect kicks in i'm sorry  
> as always, i hope you enjoyed the chapter! see you next time ♥


	5. I am all the days that you choose to ignore

The water is dark, and thick, and clings to Yuuri’s body like its life depends on it. Cold waves slice through his legs, tearing at muscles and soiling the almost black water with flowing red: a violent shudder, air ripped from his lungs, and-

Yuuri wakes up covered in sweat, gasping as Makkachin stretches and keeps snoring, draped over Yuuri’s stomach. A quick glance at the clock informs Yuuri it’s barely five in the morning: not surprising for him, to wake up from a nightmare as competitions approach.

He gets out of bed half an hour later, for a quick bathroom break and some mindless wandering around the house. Victor is awake, too, judging from the faint light coming from his room. Yuuri opts for going back to bed, hoping to squeeze in a quick nap before the assignments become a reality instead of a distant, scary promise, but lingers in the corridor anyway, eyes fixed on the door in front of him. Victor has probably been awake for hours, juggling their training schedules according to his assignments: Yuuri prefers not to know about them until he wakes up, and when he told Victor about it he nodded in understanding. Hiding his gratefulness behind a quick ‘goodnight’ and the chime of his phone turning off, he went to bed unusually early, wishing he wouldn’t wake up before the alarm - which he did, of course. Yuuri is no stranger to fate playing its dirty tricks at every given occasion, but he’s running out of fuel and sometimes, instead of getting mad, he prefers to let it slide.

With his mind wandering across the thin line between sleep and consciousness, Yuuri tucks himself into bed, sighing at the ever-present absence of his missing soulmark: it’s an endless cycle of self-deprecation and pangs of sadness and disgust and most importantly anger, it’s a habit, rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat every single day, for years. He distantly wonders if he’ll ever be allowed to at least take a break from all the negativity he, frankly, doesn’t deserve: the sharpness of his self-hatred never seems to lose its edge, and even Yuuri, with all his stubbornness and willpower, is growing tired of the endless battle.

Closing his eyes, Yuuri thinks of Victor’s soulmark.

His dark crimson rose is fully unfurled, with wide and pointy petals stretched to their limits until they cover a good part of the small, thorny stem: the tips of its petals are sharp, resembling a crown of bloodied knives more than a flower. Yuuri doesn’t think the soulmark is beautiful- he used to, but reality clearly had other plans in store and the mere view of Victor’s rose has now become a thorn in his side.

_How ironic._

Victor is everything he is not: a legendary skater, successful and charming, a social butterfly, the bearer of a soulmark.

Yuuri thinks that, if he didn’t know him on a personal level - if they weren’t _friends_ , as he fancies to call them - he’d hate Victor to the point of being sick with envy.

Now he can picture him with bags under his eyes, hunched over the small, too-bright screen of his phone, taking quick notes and rebuilding their daily schedule all over again, wearing that detestable inn robe that rests low on the back of his neck and would occasionally slip down a pale shoulder: Yuuri thinks, frowning and turning face down into the pillow, that he would rather face the strongest envy he could feel than cutting a path through the intricated web of feelings he has towards Victor.

Quickly deciding that these thoughts are too deep for five thirty in the morning, he forces himself to doze off, Makkachin resting somewhere near his legs, unfazed.

 

 

 

“I’m going to soak in the onsen for a bit! Call me when you’re done with breakfast,” says a cheerful Victor roughly four hours later, bags heavy under his eyes and the desire to tell Yuuri about his assignments tied to his smiling lips.

“I will,” is all Yuuri says, and Victor is naturally unsatisfied: he frowns, arms crossed over his chest.

“You never come to the onsen with me, Yuuri!”

_I’d rather decapitate myself with my own skates than showing my unmarked skin, thank you very much._

“Uh… is that a problem?”

Victor stares at him as if he grew four heads.

“It’s important! We should share important experiences like this one. But I understand if it makes you uncomfortable.”

As Yuuri nods, and thanks him, and Victor walks away - he can’t shake off the feeling that he _knows._

_That’s impossible._

Victor’s gaze is sharp when he returns from the onsen, robe open on his damp chest, soulmark darker than usual: the most beautiful slap to Yuuri’s face. He’s about to say something, opening his mouth with a smirk pulling at his cheekbones, when the Nishigori triplets barge into Yutopia’s main room, screaming about China and Russia and Yuri Plisetsky. The childish pout that appears on Victor’s face steals a chuckle from Yuuri’s dry-with-worry lips, putting his mind on ease, albeit momentarily. Soon everyone else sits at the center table, cheering for Yuuri’s future skating plans between drinks and excited chattering: Victor deals with it relatively well, given that he’s been awake since who knows when rearranging training schedules and scrutinizing the competition. Yuuri wishes he could stand the incessant noise as good as he does, all polite smiles and (untouched) drink in hand.

“You’ll have to compete in the block championship, then,” says Victor at one point, much to Yuuri’s chagrin. He could do without explaining to his parents that last season was so bad he has to start from square one: thankfully, they let it slide, to the old well-known mantra of _we don’t know many things about figure skating but if you’re proud of yourself then we are too_.

Yuuri thinks he could write a book or two on the art of telling the biggest lies and getting an exclusively personal backlash in return: he’s not proud of himself, far from it. His parents never looked down on him for never winning a gold medal or for being unmarked, but he presumes not all kinds of disappointment come with words. It’s better to lie to his parents about being proud of himself anyway, he thinks, rather than showing them just how weak and small and pathetic he truly is. This way, they won’t feel bad about Yuuri’s shortcomings - and what if Yuuri sabotages his own self-confidence and sense of worth? There wasn’t much to salvage in the first place anyway.

  


 

 _[Yuri P]_ _  
_ _i’ll crush you at rostelecom_

 

_ >Good luck to you too **|**_

 

Yuuri’s been internally debating over adding an exclamation point for what feels like hours: friendly emphasis is important, but risking to come off as too cocky for his standards is important, too. At some point, Victor knocks at the door, shaking Yuuri out of his reverie; telling Victor to come in, he settles for the controversial exclamation point and sends the message, tossing the phone somewhere to his right on the bed. Victor steps in, and Yuuri finds himself very nervous, all of a sudden: he fidgets with the drawstrings of his sweatpants, risking an awkward smile to counter Victor’s grimace.

“I wanted to tell you first,” he pouts, sitting beside Yuuri, who keeps his stare glued to the bare walls of his bedroom and sighs for no apparent reason.

“Don’t worry, I’d be nervous anyway.”

“Nervous?”

“Well…” Yuuri isn’t sure what to say. It’s natural to be nervous, especially when his first competition is a minor one and in less than a month, when he should focus on the Grand Prix and his unreliable quad Salchow. Still, he knows Victor doesn’t like dealing with his nerves, especially when it leads to them arguing over the pettiest things, and his anxiety over competitions isn’t what it’s clogging his throat at the moment anyway, so…

“You can tell me anything, Yuuri,” murmurs Victor, running a hand through his hair. Yuuri starts to suspect it’s a nervous reaction - he frowns at nothing in particular when he realizes he just used the word _nervous_ to describe _Victor Nikiforov_.

The truth is, he would love to tell Victor. He’d love to tell him he’s afraid of disappointing him and the world and that he’s afraid to fail in front of everyone, afraid of the usual pre-competition worries that chew on the meatiest corners of his brain; at the same time, what good could it possibly do? What could Victor, of all people, tell him to make him feel better? To make his worries go away? Is it even possible?

Is it necessary to think about these things now?

“I’m fine, really,” is what he settles for, and if Victor’s raised eyebrows are any indication, he’s being a terrible liar. “I’m always like this. There’s no need to talk about it, I’ll be fine.”

Victor hums, before answering with a sigh, and “you’re so difficult.”

 _What can I say?_ “I know.”

Now, Victor chuckles, and Yuuri does, too: his sense of humour got lost somewhere with his peace of mind, apparently. “Sleep well. We’ll worry about your assignments tomorrow,” says Victor through a rather powerful yawn, and Yuuri happily complies, feeling drained by his own negativity. He bids Victor goodnight, and willingly misses the way Victor’s eyes linger, before he walks out.

 

 

 

”I like what you did with your hair.”

“Thanks,” answers Yuuri, absentmindedly. His gaze jumps, restless, as cold shivers run down his spine: it’s been a long time since his last public appearance, and despite the Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu Championship being a minor competition, cameras and pressure are present anyway. Victor frowns, reaching out to pat a stray hair into place: Yuuri holds back a whine and retreats, anticipating him.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ruin your masterpiece,” he says, frown turning into a smirk almost instantly. Yuuri groans, arms curled around his head protectively.

“I take my time because it helps me calm down. Okay?”

“Sounds fair, but _who_ takes an hour to style his hair? With gel? Are you secretly a snail?”

“Wow, I miss Yurio.”

“So you have feelings too!”

Ignoring the unwanted jab, Yuuri braces himself and keeps going. “He knows how to insult you better than I ever could. I could use his help.”

Victor must sense his discomfort, though, because his gaze softens and he places a hand on his shoulder. “Did I say something wrong, Yuuri?”

“No,” is the only thing Yuuri can say, before Morooka practically materializes in front of him and Victor as they wait for warm up to start. They barely make it through excited greetings and the customary _I thought you wanted to retire_ that sets Yuuri’s nerves on fire, before a shrill voice interrupts them.

“Yuuri-kun!”

A boy more or less Yuri’s age runs towards Yuuri, hair dyed both blond and red: he wears the same Team Japan jacket as Yuuri, and is still wearing his sneakers. Behind him, a woman who Yuuri presumes is the boy’s coach, follows with a pained smile on her face, the telltale sign that she’s used to this kind of behavior.

“Yuuri-kun!” he repeats, eyes alight with excitement. Victor chuckles somewhere behind Yuuri, who shoots a questioning glance at Morooka: he tightens the grip on his microphone and steps back, mouth curled around a surprised ‘o’.

“Yes- hi,” says Yuuri eloquently, the phantom sensation of warm sweat trickling down the back of his neck. “Have we met before?”

The boy _stomps_ in delight, raising his voice just a bit higher. “I can’t believe you just asked me that!” Yuuri would object, it’s common courtesy to ask someone familiar if they’ve already met, but he guesses it’s wiser not to burst the boy’s bubble.

“My name is Minami Kenjiro!” he answers at last, making victory signs with both hands. “I look forward to skating on the same ice as you! I’ve always been your fan!”

_What._

Yuuri knows better than to ask him _why would you be my fan,_ and clears his throat, painfully aware of Morooka’s silent presence. “I- I’m looking forward to it too. And thank you for your, uh, support.”

“Not bad,” murmurs Victor right behind him, and his voice makes a treacherous shiver crawl up Yuuri’s back. Minami, at Yuuri’s words, gradually blushes harder and ignores the words of his worried coach to outright shout, “I’ll make a good impression, Yuuri-kun! I promise!”.

Thankfully, Morooka divides them for a quick interview, and Yuuri makes his silent escape, followed by a very amused Victor who can’t stop grinning.

“What’s so funny?” asks Yuuri, though a snort breaks through his unimpressed façade.

Victor shrugs, pointing to a nearby chair for Yuuri to sit on. “It’s cute. You don’t interact with your fans very often, I gather.”

“I never do.”

The smile turns into a half-cringe. “That’s a pity. You inspire others, believe it or not.”

“Why me of all people,” wonders Yuuri, more to himself than to answer Victor. He’s momentarily busy unzipping his jacket, so he doesn’t notice Victor’s expression for a few long, charged seconds.

Then he looks up and it’s like being pushed against the wall.

“What do you mean?” asks Victor, emotionless voice striking all kinds of worried chords between Yuuri’s throat and stomach. “That boy is your _fan._ You should be more considerate.”

“Victor, please, he’s just a-”

“Just what?” interrupts Victor calmly, taking a step forward right as Yuuri takes one back. “You think you don’t deserve your fans’ support because you failed a competition? Is that it?”

With that, Victor leaves. He walks away without even acknowledging Yuuri’s gasp - he’s not hurt, or offended. He’s… surprised?

Leaving his blade guards on a nearby chair, Yuuri steps on the ice for the warm up. Victor’s reaction takes all of his focus as he runs through a half-hearted step sequence: why did he react like that? It’s not like Yuuri offended his fans-

_No, wait._

There’s a ringing sound in Yuuri’s ears when he realizes, _I’m his fan and I supported him too, in my own way._ He thinks, how would it feel to express your gratitude to your idol only to be shot down like he risked to do with Minami? Something twists in his gut, and for once it’s not anger: it’s guilt. Minami can’t possibly know how much of a failure Yuuri is outside of his competitive life, rose-tinted glass and all; he’s still supporting him after his failure at the GPF, and he has no clue on Yuuri being unmarked: Yuuri has no reason to look down on Minami’s feelings. It’s only fair that Victor reacted like that.

Yuuri gets off the ice, deep in thought. Running through the warm up on autopilot is something that definitely won’t get ignored by Victor, but he can’t bring himself to care now: his eyes search for Minami, who just got off as well and is talking excitedly with his coach.

“Minami-kun,” he calls, voice shaky with uncertainty. Before he could even finish calling his name, Minami turns around so fast his eyes lose focus, and he blinks a couple of times, mouth agape. “Yes?” he asks, voice small and something-else-Yuuri-can’t-place.

“Goodluck-”

“Huh?”

Yuuri realizes he spoke too fast, and clears his throat, raising his voice. “Good luck! With your short program.”

Maybe, if someone put all the gold in the world right at Minami’s feet, he wouldn’t be as happy and radiant as he is now: he beams and blushes at Yuuri, barely able to stay still.

“I’ll do my best, Yuuri-kun! Th-thank you!” he outright _shouts_ , and a few heads turn in their direction. Yuuri swallows, fighting a bubbling feeling that crawls back up his throat and fills his mouth with what seems like diluted honey.

( _That’s more like it_ , he thinks, standing up to return to Yuuri’s side, clutching the Makkachin tissue box.)

 

 

 

“I’ve never had to interact with fans this close before,” confesses Yuuri as the first skater takes the ice. Victor scoffs, playing with Yuuri’s water bottle.

“Is this how you apologize?” he says, half-laughing, and Yuuri blushes again.

“Well, I don’t want to hug you in public.”

An unknown emotion darts through Victor’s eyes, blue irises flashing darker. “I see.”

When it’s Minami’s turn, Yuuri sheds his track jacket. The way Victor’s old costume sits on his waist and thighs causes once again five long seconds of burning self-doubt; Victor, clueless to Yuuri’s inner worries, dusts something off his suit and says, colloquially, “I think you should save your energy for the Cup of China. Ditch the Salchow and make it a triple.”

Yuuri gives him a half-hearted nod, arms curled around his stomach as if to protect himself. Now, _this_ is what Victor notices: he raises his eyebrows, scratching at the back of his neck.

“Yuuri, are you listening?” he tries again, softening his voice. When Yuuri nods again, eyes focused on Minami’s performance and the crowd clapping to the beat, Victor stands up and opens his arms wide, a determined look on his face.

“What,” murmurs Yuuri, now staring at Victor in disbelief.

“I know you said you don’t want to hug me in public,” he explains, a hint of sheepishness showing on his features. “But you could do with one now.”

Brain momentarily detached from the rest of the body, Yuuri gives in, hugging Victor briefly. _He’s warm and solid and_ he retreats, clearing his throat awkwardly, fixing the half-skirt of the costume.

“Thank you.”

Without looking him in the face, Victor gives him a lopsided smile and reaches for Yuuri’s water bottle, handing it to him. “Get ready, it’s your turn.”

 

 

 

 _In Regards To Love: Eros_ starts playing, and Yuuri exhales, arms flowing in time with the music.

He finds he’s not worried: his nerves are kept at bay, body too busy following the choreography to notice. Landing a clean triple axel, Yuuri’s breath hitches in his throat, the pulse of adrenaline pushing his body further, culminating in a well-executed triple Salchow, just like Victor told him to do. The temptation of trying the quad anyway was strong, but Yuuri knows better than to go against Victor’s words when tension is building between them: he suspects they have a lot to talk about after the competition is over.

The thought, surprisingly, puts a new spring in his movements. Yuuri realizes he’s skating faster than he should, and tries to adapt the choreography to the more aggressive glide of his blades: a relaxed corner of his brain wonders, what is Victor thinking? Is he hiding his face behind the tissue box? Is he getting ready to scold Yuuri until his hair turns white? Is he amused?

Perhaps it’s the fatigue, now that the routine is almost over: but a very wide expanse of Yuuri’s skin, under the costume, is hot to the touch. The aforementioned corner of his brain, turned treacherous, suggests, _you liked hugging him in public, maybe you even get off on it, what about doing it in the privacy of your room, is that what you long for,_ and Yuuri almost stumbles on his skates, recovering quickly, building speed for the jump combination. _No, it’s not like that at all._

It’s like toying with thoughts too powerful to handle: Yuuri lands a shaky quad toe loop, but falls on the subsequent triple. Picking himself up quick enough to execute the last combination spin, he can feel the crowd staring at him, stabbing the curve of his spine. Striking his final pose, Yuuri coughs around a sudden lump in his throat: now the crowd cheers, and he bows, still feeling phantom pinpricks at the small of his back.

_Stop looking at me._

Victor says nothing when he gets off the ice: he smiles an unconvincing smile, and helps him get into his track jacket as the score, a new personal best that puts in him first place, is announced.

“Thank your for doing exactly what I told you before,” he beams a few minutes after, as the cameras approach for the customary interview.

Yuuri, busy battling against the still present lump in his throat, chuckles and answers with words he barely remembers: then, he puts on his most convincing smile for the cameras.

 

 

 

“Yuuri-kun, are you alright? You’re very pale.”

Minami’s worried voice comes through, and Yuuri jolts, gasping slightly: Minami is bending over, face to face with Yuuri, who’s sitting on the same chair as the day of the short program. Almost as if realizing their proximity, Minami blushes hard and stumbles back, flailing.

“I- you look like you’re not doing well,” says Minami, fidgeting with the hem of his track jacket, but never breaking eye contact all the same.

Having slept barely an hour, thanks to his worries about the free program and whatever it is that shocked him of Victor’s embrace, Yuuri forces himself to smile and cooks up a quick excuse. “I’m not feeling very well, no- maybe I’m coming down with a cold.”

At Minami’s watery eyes, Yuuri is quick to add, “but I’ll be fine! I can skate today, it’s not as bad as it looks!”

“Well, take care then!” interjects Minami, as soon as Yuuri is finished talking: there’s a determination in his now-less-watery eyes that Yuuri could be jealous of. “I want to compete against you in full form! Fight the cold!”

Guilt stretches inside of him again, and Yuuri clears his throat. “I… will fight the cold then. Thank you for worrying, Minami-kun.”

Victor, who lagged behind to exchange a few words with Minako before she left, comes back just in time: Minami doesn’t even look at him, and darts away in search of his coach. Yuuri looks up, finding an amused smirk on Victor’s face.

“That’s how much he looks up to you,” he observes, gaze firm on Minami. “He doesn’t even care about me being here.”

“Maybe you’re just that forgettable.”

Now, Victor’s smirk turns into a grimace. “Ah. Maybe,” is all he says, and sits down on the chair near Yuuri’s. Wondering why his sarcasm seems to fail with Victor recently, Yuuri clutches his own stomach and wills himself to breathe steadily as the first skater takes the ice. Today, he’ll be skating last, and while the pressure isn’t strong as a Grand Prix competition, his nerves are still on fire thanks to the sleepless night of which Victor doesn’t know about.

“If I were you, I’d turn the last jump into a triple,” pipes up Victor out of the blue. “You’re clearly tired, you need all the rest you can get. There’s no need to go all out today.”

Thinking of Minami’s request, of him expressing his will to compete against Yuuri in full form, Yuuri exhales shakily and clenches his stomach tighter. “I think I should show Minami and the others what I’m able to do now. Why should I hold back?”

“I just told you,” answers Victor in a weary voice, as he leans back in the chair. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Turn the last toe loop into a triple.”

 _I’m going with the quad,_ he thinks, nails digging into the fabric of his track jacket. _I’m not a broken toy. I have to give it my all, no matter what happens._

Victor seems content to drop the argument, pleased with having the last word: Yuuri leaves him be, shoes tapping nervously, impatient to skate and show his coach what he’s made of. He can’t afford the luxury to hold back: if he wants to make a good impression, he’s going to do it with everything he can. Not to mention that, whenever he gets an opportunity to fight against fate, Yuuri will gladly take it.

 

 

 

To no one’s surprise, Yuuri fails to deliver.

His movements are stiff, his landings are shaky, and he falls on the first quad, then he falls again on the triple axel (the triple axel!) and, of course, steps out on the landing of the final quadruple jump, that should have been a triple, last time he talked to Victor. The score is lower than Yuuri expected, but thanks to the higher difficulty of his program he still ends in first place: Minami, who is in second place and a good fifteen points behind, skates up to him after the small ceremony ends.

“Yuuri-kun! How are you feeling now?”

Shrugging, Yuuri holds the small bouquet tighter in his hands. “I’m fine, thank you. I feel a little better.”

Which is true: now the anxiety is dissipating slowly, though a stronger distress is taking its place, at the thought of confronting Victor about his skating and how he went against his decisions.

“I’m glad! I’m sorry you feel sick, but know one thing!”

Minami’s enthusiasm gets to Yuuri, who smiles encouragingly, prompting him to continue. “I respect you a lot more now, Yuuri-kun! You skated and gave it everything you had even like this! I admire you so much.”

Someone - of course, Victor - clears his throat somewhere behind Yuuri. It’s time to go: he thanks Minami again for his support, feeling like the worst liar on the planet, and greets him with a promise to compete against each other again in the future.

Victor is silent until they get back to the hotel: he follows him inside Yuuri’s room, closing the door behind him, effectively trapping Yuuri and preventing any possible escape from the inevitable conversation they’ll have in a few charged seconds. Victor’s eyes are hard, as they study Yuuri’s pale face.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Trying to please everyone. Stop doing that.”

Despite the calm in Victor’s voice, Yuuri feels like he just shouted in his face. His cheeks grow hotter by the second, and with frantic eyes he searches for something, who cares what it is, if it’s enough to stop looking at Victor. “I…“

As Victor stays silent, Yuuri forces it out. “It’s hard for people to like me. Can you blame me for wanting to be better?”

“I don’t blame you. I told you already, I want to see the true Yuuri,” is Victor’s prompt answer, and Yuuri scoffs.

“What do you know about the true me anyway. You wouldn’t like it.”

 _Go find your soulmate and leave me alone_ , says the irrational voice in his mind: with ringing ears, Yuuri suppresses those feelings, and swallows the bitterness with practiced ease.

Voice shaking, Victor runs a hand through his hair as he tells Yuuri, standing stupidly in the middle of the room, “I wish I could feel the anger inside you. Then I’d understand what I’m supposed to do, for once.”

To this, Yuuri can’t say anything. He stares at Victor, partly registering his sour smile, as he tells Yuuri in a steadier tone, “If you’re thinking of apologizing - please don’t. We can talk things out, without fighting, can’t we?”

_What is the best course of action for someone who hates opening his heart to others?_

Without thinking, Yuuri reaches for Victor’s wrist, holding it tightly, just like he did after Onsen On Ice all those weeks ago, and he says-

“すみません”

-to which Victor, quite adorably, draws his brows together and chuckles under his breath.

“For what?”

“No, no- I wanted to thank you.”

Yuuri’s forehead, much to his surprise, is pushed up against Victor’s. He doesn’t remember how or why.

“Oh,” he says stupidly, then chuckles, and the warmth of his breath tickles Yuuri’s lips.

“Yeah.”

_What is happening._

“Why in Japanese, though…?” asks Victor, softly.

_Why are you having such an effect on me. I’m not supposed to feel like this._

“...it’s the best way I can express my gratitude to you,” he answers, eventually, and Victor’s hot breath appears to grow faster. “For the trouble you’re going through.”

Then it’s over: Victor steps back, looking almost embarrassed, and fixes his tie as Yuuri busies himself with his glasses that really don’t need to be adjusted, but he does anyway because why not?

“I see.”

Victor returns to his own room after an awkward silence and a quiet ‘good night’, leaving Yuuri alone with his heart banging against every corner of his ribcage and sweat blooming on the small of his back.

 

 

 

_What am I doing._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a relatively calm chapter before the storm. yay  
> if you read the original oneshot, heads up! THIS IS WHERE HISTORY BRANCHES OFF (100 points if you get the obscure reference). there will be some significant differences, and i can't talk about the ending, but know this: the fic will go beyond the last night in barcelona before the gpf starts, and a particular event from the cup of china will be very different. so yeah! buckle up  
> the way yuuri thanks victor (すみません, “sumimasen”) is more commonly known as “excuse me”, but can also mean thank you! it’s used to thank someone acknowledging the trouble they went through for you. so yuuri thanks victor, yes, but is also saying, “i understand it’s hard to work with me and i appreciate your efforts”. so yeah that’s nice. and victor’s got it bad. so bad.  
> as always, hope you enjoyed! ♥


	6. In you, I'm lost

Much has changed since the Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu Championship.

Unsurprisingly, Victor knows no pity after what, in his words, is a ‘disappointing performance’: all sorts of training now take up the entirety of Yuuri’s day, spanning from early in the morning to well past dinnertime; critic is also far more frequent than praise. Nevertheless, Yuuri accepts it with a fond smile: his strengthened bond with Victor helps a lot in dealing with stress and fatigue, and they often end up laughing and fooling around in the rink, sharing stories and tiptoeing on the thin frail line between coach-and-student bond and _whatever it is_ between them.

They had no arguments, big or small, after the championship: apparently, Victor's plea to talk it out before giving in to emotions worked, even if Yuuri can’t quite shake off his worries anyway. In his slim social experience, the biggest arguments come after months and months of blissful agreements: waiting for the other shoe to drop proves to be unnerving, as if treading on eggshells - and he never thought he’d be feeling like this around Victor, of all people. Always putting up a smiling front, he’d never look like the sort of person to get upset and hold grudges, except it’s exactly what he did with Yuuri, and it’s not very flattering to have this effect on people. Bringing out the rough edges of someone like Victor is one of the many detestable talents Yuuri never knew he had, and never wanted, too.

This is what pushes Yuuri to be a better person, though: he smiles more often, forcing an amicable façade and putting his discomfort on the back burner. Victor seems to notice, enjoying Yuuri’s small changes, the way he listens to him rambling about things entirely unrelated from skating; how his eyes linger on the shape of his shoulders under tight-fitting black shirts, as small, careless touches are infused with purpose and a search for comfort and intimacy.

It’s all he thinks about when he runs through his free skate: the paths carved into the ice speak the same language as the frantic heartbeats, the sweat rolling down the side of his neck, the way he stutters and laughs at himself as he stumbles over elementary words because Victor is touching him so casually - and _what is this._

Yuuri is the well known possessor of a one-track mind, so he wills himself to focus on his skating entirely, refusing to give a name to the warmth that tortures him day and night, like thorns sprouting along the length of his spine.

 _It’s dangerous,_ he told himself months ago. _Whatever it is you’re doing, stop it now._

What if he did listen, back then?

_What if you did?_

 

 

The proverbial other shoe drops, eventually, and it happens on the evening before the short program.

According to Victor, the food in Beijing is delicious: he proceeds to try almost anything the waiters bring to their table, as Yuuri politely refuses to follow in his footsteps, sticking to his diet. To counterbalance, Victor indulges in alcohol, too: Yuuri chews on his lower lip as a very tipsy Victor slides beside him a good hour later, allowing Phichit and Celestino, who just joined in, to sit on the bench opposite.

“It’s been a while, hasn’ it, Yuuri?” asks Celestino, taking a worried look at the quantity of _‘weird things’_ , as he dubbed the food, on the table - whatever survived Victor's bottomless appetite, anyway. Phichit scrolls happily on his phone, holding a fingerless glove between his teeth, apparently too lost in the wonders of his Instagram feed to remove the other one too; Yuuri refrains from changing subject, and claws at his knees under the table as he answers, “yeah, it has. Sorry I never called again, I… uh. I was busy.”

“We noticed,” is Celestino’s answer, hiding his smirk behind steepled fingers. “The media had several field days with you and Victor. You seem to be holding up well, though.”

Celestino has difficult years of coaching Yuuri under his belt, and his worry is genuine, yet masked behind his trademark sharp irony: Yuuri risks a glance sideways, catching Victor in the act of tugging on his collar. Registering his flushed cheeks and wobbly smile, Yuuri takes a deep breath, bracing himself to handle the presence of a drunk Victor Nikiforov in probably less than five minutes.

“Yeah, I’m doing fine,” he squeaks, ears ringing as Victor grunts something, catching Phichit’s attention: looking up from his phone, he laughs and snaps a picture. Celestino, clearly unbothered by what is about to occur, raises his eyebrows and his focus falls on the duck blood right in front of him. Pulling a face at it, he sighs, “I know I’m probably worrying over nothing, but if you need anything, you know that-”

“ _Yuuri._ ”

Victor's hot burst of breath tears the goosebumps off Yuuri’s skin, as a warm, flushed cheek is pressed up against his own.

“W-what-”

“Yuuri, I’m so hot,” whines Victor, fingers clawing at Yuuri’s shirt. Forcibly swallowing down a breathy curse, Yuuri plants both hands on Victor's chest and pushes him off, earning a very exaggerated pout in return. Celestino and Phichit’s quiet sniggering doesn’t help.

“Why don’t you believe me, Yuuri? I’m not drunk,” slurs Victor, very drunkenly, and giggles as he pulls his own shirt up, revealing the pale skin of his stomach and the pronounced line of his sternum: Yuuri stops begging him to calm down as he catches a glimpse of red petals on his skin, sudden irritation scratching at his skull. Grabbing the hem of Victor's shirt, he tugs it down with one sharp movement: Victor moans, calling him a something-probably-not-nice in Russian for ‘ruining the moment’, whatever he meant by that.

“We’re going back now,” he says, voice shaking with embarrassment. It’s the last thing he wants - he’s supposed to focus on the short program, not worry about his coach’s future hangover.

Celestino stands up, responsibility growing behind his amused, crinkled eyes. He offers to help, but Yuuri denies, explaining that some fresh air will do wonders for sobering Victor up. They greet each other with hurried words, Phichit’s laughter an unexpected yet pleasant background, and Yuuri has to link arms with Victor for him to walk on a mostly straight line, without tripping every two steps.

Eventually, with Victor's weak protests filling the ringing silence in Yuuri’s mind, they manage to get back to the hotel: Yuuri helps Victor into his room, closing the door behind him. Even drunk, Victor wastes no occasion to smirk up at Yuuri, falling down on the bed.

“Wow, so fow… straifor… direct, yeah,” laughs Victor, running a hand through his disheveled hair. Yuuri doesn’t answer, opting for a stressed sigh, disappearing into the bathroom to retrieve a glass of water. When he comes back, he observes that Victor has managed to remove his shirt, and is now laughing and patting his own head.

“Look at my hair. Funny,” he says, hiccuping halfway through.

“Yeah, very funny,” grumbles Yuuri, setting the glass on the side table with finality. He’s turning around, about to tell Victor he’s leaving to get eight full hours of sleep before tomorrow, when-

“Why won’t you look at me?”

Yuuri freezes, heart shooting up in his throat: Victor's broken voice echoes in his ears, stretching down across his throat, as bitterness trickles down and down.

_Not now. Please._

He voices the sentiment, “please, Victor, you’re drunk and you need some rest,” but it serves no purpose as Victor's arms crawl around Yuuri’s neck, his bare chest - his soulmark - rising and falling calmly, pressed up against the side of Yuuri’s arm.

Victor's lips slide along Yuuri’s earlobe as he breathes, reeking of alcohol, “I always look at you, and you throw me aside;” with joined wrists pressing down on Yuuri’s bony shoulder, he adds, in a lower register, “you hurt me.”

Even if Yuuri knew how to answer, even if he knew the right thing to say to a very inebriated Victor who decided it was the right time to get sentimental and poke at things Yuuri shouldn’t even know of, no sound would come out of his mouth: Victor runs a greedy hand through his dark hair and tugs back with endearing gentleness, until they’re looking in each other’s eyes, and Yuuri’s gaze lingers and falls to the petals of Victor's soulmark and his very eyeballs seem to shudder, as stormy blue dives into muted brown that surrenders to dark crimson red.

“I’m so awful, Yuuri,” breathes Victor, right past Yuuri’s parted lips. “I’m horrible,” he adds, tilting his head, the soft warmth of his sharp, flushed cheekbones a striking contrast to the cold shine in his eyes.

As Victor smiles a fake smile, as Yuuri’s lungs wheeze in pain, as their noses draw closer-

_we could kiss right now_

-he slips out of Victor's embrace, fingernails digging into the taut skin of his biceps.

“Please, stop,” he begs, gaze fixed on Victor's soulmark.

He’s forgotten everything about the color blue, for now.

“You’re very drunk,” insists Yuuri, helping Victor towards the bed, still refusing to look him in the eye. “Please try to sleep. Tomorrow is an important day and we can’t afford to… do this. Not now,” _not ever,_ “so take some rest. There’s a glass of water in case you need it. I’ll be in my room, of course- ah. Sorry, I… have to go now.”

Victor has no time to answer, or rather, Yuuri doesn’t allow him a fraction of a second: he’s out of the room before he can hear anything, except the irregular beat of his heart.

  


Needless to say, he dreams of turbulent, angry waves, soaking him to the bone.

  


“You were very drunk last night.”

Victor throws his head back as he laughs, prompting a snort from Yuuri. They arrived at the rink early, mainly because Yuuri, in need of justice after the previous night, wanted to test Victor's legendary resistance to hangovers. He never was _that_ drunk in Yuuri’s presence: save for a rebellious strand of hair at the very tip of his head, Victor is in perfect form, and Yuuri finds himself partly disappointed at his resilience.

He’ll deal with what Victor said and did last night another time: right now, he has to focus on the competition and he can’t afford to fail.

“I guess I was. Did I shock you that much? What was it this time- singing? Crying? Stripping? What was it?”

If he closes his eyes, Yuuri can see Victor's lips, red and parted, and the shock of blue behind silver hair. He can still recall his breath, smelling of alcohol and- _stop it._

“Stripping,” he replies eventually, wrangling a strained laugh from the bottom of his throat. “I had to help you into your clothes.”

“Oh, that’s why I woke up with my shirt unbuttoned and inside out, then.”

Yuuri keeps his sigh hidden behind clenched teeth, as Victor's coach, Yakov, walks past with another student: Victor stops laughing and reaches out, grabbing Yakov’s coat and greeting him with an overly enthusiastic “hi”.

As Yakov turns around and makes brief eye contact with him, Yuuri wishes he could disappear through the wall at his back: he can only make out a nickname for Victor, _Vitya_ , in the mess of rapid Russian he almost literally spits in Victor's face. His student, wearing a Team Russia jacket and looking in physical pain at the words of his coach, pretends to look at nothing in particular and probably wishes he was elsewhere. Yuuri can relate.

Victor doesn’t seem bothered at all, and answers in a carefree-sounding voice: it’s not the first time Yuuri hears him talking in Russian, but this time it’s different- there’s an urgency, behind the happy tone he chooses to use, an inkling of something Yuuri can’t quite put his finger on.

Yakov barks a sharp laugh at Victor's words, and bites his subsequent answer on its way out of his mouth: then he turns around, walking off somewhere with his student, who gives Victor a sheepish smile before following.

Pretending not to notice the way Victor's fingers shake slightly as he turns around and grabs at his tie in distress, though wearing a polite smile on his face, Yuuri busies himself with a water bottle- or rather, he tries to. Now that warm up is about to start, all the skaters are gathered rinkside, including…

“Chris!” says Victor turning around, recovering quickly from his brief talk with Yakov. Christophe Giacometti chooses to answer Victor's greeting throwing an arm around his shoulders, and murmuring something in French very close to Victor's ear, who just laughs and pushes him away playfully.

“Hello, Yuuri,” he says then, focusing his attention on him. Yuuri swallows and greets him back, wishing Phichit and Celestino were here for no reason in particular. “I’ve heard Victor is an awful coach. Is it true?”

Buying time to blurt out an acceptable answer, Yuuri pushes back down the desire to lash out at Chris, telling him to _ask him yourself since you’re so comfortable around him_. He would love to run frustrated hands through his hair, because really, why is he feeling like that? There’s no reason to talk like that to Chris, who has always been polite and respectful of Yuuri’s space during the brief talks they shared at past competitions. Seeing him act that casually around Victor, though, now that Yuuri knows Victor on a personal level, is somehow irritating.

“He could be better,” he jokes, and Chris laughs openly, as Victor snorts, clearly not as amused.

_Well, it’s true._

“You’re bolder than I remember, Yuuri. It’s a good sign.”

All the irrational hostility towards Chris dissipates, it’s like a weight has been lifted from Yuuri’s shoulders, and he smiles, scratching at the side of his neck. That’s when he spots Phichit and Celestino to the side, and excuses himself to go exchange some words with them: Victor grabs him by the shoulder, and stops him in his tracks. Yuuri has to stop for a full second, before looking at him in the face: there’s a hardness in his eyes he hasn’t seen before.

“Warm up is about to start. Stay here.”

Chris has removed his arm from around Victor's shoulders: now he’s looking at them, eyebrows scrunched up. He avoids eye contact with Yuuri as he steps back and crosses his arms, sighing: Victor runs a hand on his face, before turning around to resume talking to Chris, in pointed French. Yuuri briefly thinks it’s because he doesn’t want him to listen in, and digs his front teeth into his lip.

During warm up, Yuuri’s mind goes back to the previous night. Right as he builds up speed to launch into a triple axel, a flash of Victor's lips makes him pop the jump: he curses to himself, skating to the side and leaving the rink to more focused skaters, as it should be. If he can’t calm down, he has no place here: it doesn’t matter that his feelings towards Victor are messy and jumbled right now, he has to throw them aside and concentrate, and skate the way he knows best.

Yuuri doesn’t get to see Phichit’s short program, or Guang Hong’s, who skated before him: Victor makes a point of keeping him isolated, to control his nerves. Yuuri hates to admit it, but it works: as he strips off his jacket and takes the ice, he finds himself more relaxed than he thought. Where Celestino first insisted he fought against his anxiety, Victor offered a quick way out: Yuuri feels offended, because he’s not some frail creature that must be protected. He can fight as good as any other skater, but still, he feels an unusual warmth inside knowing that Victor worried about him.

 _Anyone would. It’s just his job after all,_ he tells himself- he can’t be thinking about this now. _Focus._

Victor holds out a hand for Yuuri to take: he smiles, and the bow of his lips gets through, in the short seconds before Yuuri’s name is announced. _It’s about to start. Don’t lose it. Stay calm._

“Remember what I told you all those months ago?” asks Victor, and Yuuri hardens his gaze. He has no time for memory games, he needs the reassurance, the knowledge that no matter the outcome Victor will be there, at his side as soon as he steps off the ice and as they wait for the score at the kiss and cry and as they go back to the hotel in perhaps a smelly cab and as the elevator chimes and he digs in his pockets for the keycard and-

“Seduce me with your skating,” purrs Victor, leaning closer. Yuuri’s breath hitches in his throat- _this_ , he does remember. “Take my breath away. Make me yours.”

It’s hard to push himself off and skate to center ice, observes Yuuri: the intensity of Victor's stare is hard to swallow, and he barely reins his embarrassment in, acknowledging the crowd as his name is announced and they cheer for him. It’s mechanical: close your eyes, cock your hip, breathe in, out, wait for the music, focus.

_Make me yours._

Something snaps, and Yuuri’s spine arches and bends, following the flow of the music: the starting choreography has him licking his lips, throwing what he thinks is an intense look in Victor's direction, and he skates off into the intricate step sequence he now knows by heart. The crowd approves, and he can make out some whistling as he launches into the spread eagle, and lands a clean triple axel.

Yuuri wonders, has Victor picked up on what he thinks of as he skates _Eros_? That would be a very long stretch. He can’t possibly know the way he riles Yuuri up lately- how his casual touches aren’t just cause of embarrassment, but are also enjoyed and encouraged; how his murmuring words of praise at Yuuri’s skating, as they rewatch his old performances together, lights a thick fire that threatens to burn the insides of his stomach; how much he treasures Victor's happiness as he finishes a program, how his lips stretch around his name-

_two-footed landing on the 2T_

-so Yuuri thinks that, maybe, Victor is looking at him less like a student, or a friend, and more like a- _don’t you dare-_

_wobbly 4T, but it’s there_

-and as he strikes his final position, Yuuri breathes again. He bows mechanically, out of breath, and greets the colorful blob of the crowd as he skates off: Victor is there, promptly handing him his blade guards, and he says nothing, Makkachin tissue holder in hand. Yuuri clears his throat and keeps panting as they sit in the kiss and cry, eyes fixed on the monitor, anxiety kicking up a storm in his lungs.

_Why isn’t he saying any-_

“That was…”

Victor never finishes, so Yuuri has to forget about his score-related anxiety for a bit, and looks at Victor: he’s smiling down at the tissue holder, playing with its ears. “I don’t know. I don’t know what that was.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… I asked you to do one thing, before you skated, didn’t I? It’s only natural that-”

He never knows what Victor wanted to say: the reaction of the crowd at his score is _deafening_. It’s the highest score Yuuri’s gotten in all his career, and as he realizes it, he can feel tears welling up in his eyes.

“Oh my God,” is all the says, a smile pulling at his currently o-shaped mouth: then someone grabs his hand, holding it tightly, and eventually he realizes it’s Victor. Looking back at him, he finds a smile - a genuine one.

“You did so well,” he sighs, and seems almost relieved. It’s like second nature to Yuuri, as he reaches towards him with open arms for a hug: Victor doesn’t hesitate, holding him tight, repeating variations of ‘ _you were so good_ ’ right in Yuuri’s ear, to the point Yuuri can almost believe it.

As they leave the kiss and cry, they’re stopped by Phichit and Celestino: Phichit compliments Yuuri, the fatigue of his short program apparently having no effect on his enthusiasm. Yuuri laughs in embarrassment: instead of willing himself to accept compliments without feeling weird about it, he directs his attention on Celestino, who stands on the side and smiles to himself, looking down at his feet. As Phichit excuses himself and runs off to who knows where, Yuuri shoots Victor a glance and walks up to Celestino: he clearly waited for his turn to say something. He unfolds his arms and keeps smiling at Yuuri, even as he fidgets and stumbles on his words before getting it out.

“Celestino- I, I wanted to thank you.”

Now, Celestino looks surprised. “ _Eh?_ Why?”

“Well, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for your help. With skating and other things.”

Yuuri expected him to laugh, patting his back and telling him, ‘ _Yuuri, it’s just the short program- thank me after you get on the podium at the Final!’_ , but he does none of that. Instead, he smiles again and clasps his hands together, looking up at the ceiling.

“All the grey hair served its purpose,” he jokes, and Yuuri feels like he should be offended, but he isn’t. After all, he knows how taxing it is to deal with nerves, and he can’t imagine the things Celestino went through to help him.

Maybe it’s the reason why he doesn’t want to entrust all his problems to Victor.

(Little does Yuuri know, he would be more than willing to.)

 

 

“I can’t believe I’m in first place,” deadpans Yuuri, stepping into the elevator. Victor follows close behind, a giddy smile on his face.

“You should thank your presentation score for that,” he explains, tugging at his collar: Victor has been looking strangely bothered by it, notes Yuuri. It started right after he came off the ice. “You really put everything in it. I’m glad!”

They bid each other goodnight and go their separate ways: as soon as Yuuri is safe in his room, he takes a deep breath, leaning with his back against the closed door.

“At what cost,” he mumbles to himself, sighing into his open palm. Blinking with tired eyelids down at the room carpet, he sighs again, and starts stripping down to take what will hopefully be a relaxing shower.

Fantasizing during his program is dangerous, and he knows: he’s been warning himself about that ever since he first discovered the tentative feelings scattered in the deepest corners of his body. Chris prompted it: suggesting Victor isn’t a good coach, suggesting Yuuri is better off without him, suggesting Victor is better off returning to the ice and resigning from being his coach- he can’t let him. He won’t let him.

_I want him to be mine._

Which is exactly what Victor asked him, before he skated.

How ironic, he thinks.

_But he can’t be._

So what should he do? How should he feel?

 

 

_“Makkachin, wait!”_

_Victor is wearing dark blue swimming trunks and the biggest smile Yuuri’s ever seen, as he runs after Makkachin along the beach: the sunset casts warm light all over the sea and reaches gently through the lenses of Yuuri’s glasses- suddenly, Victor flops down at his side, leaning in, breathless, eyes twinkling._

_“What are you doing?” he asks, crossing his legs. Now Yuuri is standing up, holding Victor's hand as he tugs him back up._

_“It’s cold here. We should go swim for a bit,” he explains, feeling warm all over, tugging Victor towards the sea: before he knows it, waves are splashing all around, water turned orange in the sunset light._

_There’s a hint of stubble on Victor's chin, realizes Yuuri, as he runs a hand across his chest- and there’s no soulmark, so he blinks, and Victor stops kissing him._

_“I don’t like you with long hair,” pouts Victor, as he tugs gently at Yuuri’s short hair and kisses a path down his cheekbone,_ then Yuuri wakes up in a pool of sweat and there’s no hint of orange in his field of vision.

It’s with a sluggish mind and sleepy limbs that he starts crying, tears soaking the pillow as he leans on his side, curling up in himself, warm skin itching all over: he knows better than to get up and ask for Victor's help.

_You knew it was dangerous._

Eventually, he falls asleep two hours and a half after, on the coldest edge of the bed and with his head hidden between shaking arms, feeling utterly defeated and ashamed.

 

 

There’s white noise everywhere in his head, as he laces up his skates and spares Victor an unconvincing smile, as he tells him ‘you could have called me’, ‘do you need some peace and quiet’, ‘you should skip warm up and take a nap while you can’.

All he hears is, _you’re not strong enough to do this,_ and Yuuri starts believing it on the spot.

They barely make it through Leo De La Iglesia’s program: Victor holds his hand, guiding him to what he says is ‘a quiet, reserved place where you’ll be able to calm down’.

It’s like his mouth is stuffed with cotton and there’s someone prodding at the back of his eyes, because Yuuri can’t answer and his heartbeat is doing all sorts of crazy things. There’s sweat on his fingertips, too, as they walk into a desolated parking lot, and Victor tells him he can unwind now, he won’t be able to hear the scores as long as he keeps his earphones plugged in.

So, he does as he’s told. Because he’s good at it, isn’t he. _No you aren’t. You sorry excuse of a skater._

He does anyway.

 

 

It’s in the span of a heartbeat, the moment it takes to change the song he’s listening to- it’s when he can overhear Phichit’s score, his _impossibly high_ score, and he tugs the earphones out, he stares at the ceiling, he wants to say, _no,_ because he still has to skate, it can’t be over, can it? But that score- Victor's smooth, unmarked skin, glowing in the sunset-

“ _Don’t listen!_ ”

Now Victor shouts, covering Yuuri’s ears, but the damage is done. Why is he still trying to protect him? That’s absurd. There’s no one and nothing he has to be protected from, because protecting Yuuri from himself isn’t an option.

Eventually, Yuuri hears himself murmur, “it’s time we go back,” as he gently pushes Victor's gloved hands off his ears. Steadying himself, Yuuri walks towards the exit, a hitch in his step that he hopes won’t be a problem on the ice.

“Yuuri.”

Something is wrong with Victor's voice.

He freezes, turns around.

He’s serious.

Yuuri is anxious, can’t he see.

It’s not the right moment.

It’s not-

“If you mess up during your free skate-”

 

 

_please don’t say it_

 

 

“-I’ll take responsibility and ask for your withdrawal. It’s clear you can’t give it your all in these conditions.”

 

There’s silence between them, in the parking lot.

 

Yuuri breathes.

 

Then, he sees red, and he _shouts_ \- it’s not words, it’s just a shout, a feral sound that claws its way out of Yuuri’s throat and leaves him aching and panting, clenching his fists and his teeth- _not now, please_.

“How dare you,” he growls, feeling the sting of tears in his eyes: just like that, Victor crumbles, his solemn façade falling down and revealing him for what he is- Yuuri’s source of problems, the reason he’s feeling like this, _the worst thing that could have ever happened to him_.

“How dare you treat me like this,” he repeats, angry and warm tears staining his flushed cheeks. “Like I’m some- some defective toy, or-”

“Yuuri, calm down,” begs Victor, oh he begs, and how Yuuri loves the sound of that, “I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought- I was scared, I-”

Cutting himself off as Yuuri covers his face with both hands, nails digging on whatever skin they can reach, Victor sighs in frustration. “I don’t know how to handle you, Yuuri. I don’t want to hurt you, honestly... “

Yuuri really, really doesn’t care right now. Does he want to listen to Victor's useless apologies? Definitely not. What he wants is- who cares? It’s not like something is going to go his way, it’s not like his luck could change, all of a sudden, just because he’s having a breakdown! That would be useful, wouldn’t it?

“Yuuri, please, listen-”

“ _I don’t want to listen,_ ” he shouts, again, and his throat is so dry and it feels so good: Victor backs off, when did he even get this close?, and his breath is coming faster, too. He wonders if Victor can cry, like other humans do. He’d love to see that. He’d love to be the the cause of that.

“You ruined everything,” growls Yuuri, and again, “I never asked for this- why are you _here_ ,” and he wonders if Victor caught any of that, because he’s crying so hard he has to stop for a moment, is he speaking English or Japanese? Then he hiccups and cries again, this time harder, and he shakes, sweating under his now too-tight jacket.

“What do you want me to do, then,” says Victor's emotionless, quiet voice eventually, after Yuuri has calmed down a bit: he has to take a deep breath, coughing on it then trying again, before he answers.

“Stop trying to protect me,” is what he chooses to say. _Stay by my side and never leave,_ instead, is stuck in his throat. “I’m not broken.”

Victor nods, averting his eyes as they leave the parking lot in silence.

 

 

Yuuri knows all eyes are on him, as he blows his nose and ignores the cold sweat sliding down his back. Handing the used handkerchief to Victor, he licks his lips and inhales, steadying himself: instead of feeling rough and unfocused, there’s a cool reassurance flowing in him, someone that whispers in his ear, _you’re going to be great, show everyone what you can do._

Surprisingly, it’s himself.

Before he can think twice, he reaches out towards Victor, taking hold of his wrist: he doesn’t miss Victor's small gasp, though eye contact is still out of the question. Yuuri has no time to speak, because he has to go out and skate, now- there’s a faint smudge of anxiety in his peripheral vision, but he ignores it, purposely stroking Victor's knuckles as he skates away.

Everything blurs, color bleeding into color, as the music starts and Yuuri directs it with his body.

A cascading waterfall of notes accompanies Yuuri through the first motions, cupping his hands and raising them, to release the feelings he’s been hiding deep down himself all this time: it’s gratitude, and faith, and fondness, expressed with every jump and spin and transition. A bad fall that punches the breath out of him on the quadruple Salchow? Yuri will hopefully laugh at him for that. Over-rotating his triple loop? Who cares, his family doesn’t even know the difference between a loop and, say, the triple axel he lands masterfully: he can still remember the first time he landed a clean one, the smile on Celestino’s face and the pride that radiated from his bright eyes. Next up is the second quad toe loop: Yuuri smiles, because he knows what he should do now.

It’s a realization that comes easily, that breathes new air into his lungs, that puts that needed, fresh spring in his tired steps: the exhaustion from a sleepless night and a nervous breakdown is showing, but he’s going to try anyway. He has to.

Wondering, _what expression is Victor wearing now,_ Yuuri jumps a quadruple flip - Victor's signature move, and no, he doesn’t land it, far from it: it’s another fall, but he gets up almost instantly. He thinks the needed rotations are all there, and he spins and spins and he’s so exhausted, he shakes in his final position, arm stretched out in Victor's direction, _he knows_ , and he collapses, panting with his forehead glued to the ice.

It feels like someone is helping him to stand up, to greet and bow at the audience: as he skates back, he sees Victor, running to meet him.

He doesn’t think: he skates faster, calling his name.

“I did good, didn’t I?” he asks, confident, smiling, and he feels so out of his depth but so proud of himself, it’s like he’s levitating.

Victor smiles, and chuckles, and holds his arms open as Yuuri steps off the ice and crumbles in his arms.

“ _Bolshoe spasibo_ ,” he breathes in Yuuri’s hair. As if he could feel Yuuri’s eyebrows shooting up, he laughs again, voice rough, and confesses in a lower voice, “I thought Russian could do.”

They both smile as they walk to the kiss and cry, and they smile again as Yuuri steps off the podium after the medal ceremony, bronze resting on his chest. Stealing a glance at Victor before the cameras catch sight of them, Yuuri notices he’s still flushed a good thirty minutes after he came off the ice: endearment runs through his veins, blood now boiling for entirely different and pleasant reasons.

 

 

The medal resting on Yuuri’s chest may be bronze, but Victor's hair is silver and pale and pretty as it falls on his face, when he turns towards Yuuri and is able, with a single glance, to make him feel like the most important person in the room - even if they’re inside a cramped cab that is currently taking them back to their hotel. Their hands are almost touching in the middle of the seat: Yuuri offers a quick, tired smile. Victor deepens his own and tilts his head, exposing both eyes, clearly searching for something behind Yuuri’s heavy-lidded gaze.

“You can be selfish,” he tells him, the endearing rumble of his voice cutting through the silence. “You can be the most selfish person on Earth, if you want to.”

Yuuri stays silent, though his heart is aching and begging his lungs to push and make him say something, anything: otherwise, he’ll blow up. Now is the right time, he knows. He has to say it.

_Thank you for making me stronger._

But he doesn’t want to.

So Victor goes on, his attention falling down on their hands.

“Everyone deserves their own happiness. You deserve yours, too.”

Now able to see where this is going, Yuuri braces himself: he gasps anyway as Victor's smooth hand caresses his fist, fingertips sliding up and down the ridges of his knuckles.

Victor's voice is the quietest it’s ever been, as he confesses, perhaps more to himself than to Yuuri, “I’d love to make you happy,” and there are street lights coming through the window that paint Victor's face and hair in beautiful gold, and Yuuri’s knees draw together as he exhales shakily and tears his gaze away.

He wants to say, _don’t_.

He can’t, so they make it to the hotel in complete silence. He doesn’t question Victor as he follows him into his own room, and his plea to sleep together is spoken through thick, light eyelashes and an unsure smile on his lips. Yuuri, again, doesn’t say what he thinks, so Victor stays, and gets in bed after a quick shower, and Yuuri pretends he can’t hear his soft breathing as he comes out of the shower and gets in bed too and turns his back on him into a bed too small but he has to turn off the bedside light anyway, and why is this happening so fast?, he wonders, catching his breath as he turns back to face him, and Victor is breathtaking as moonlight falls on the shape of his body, so close to Yuuri’s-

“Yuuri, I-”

“I’m unmarked.”

 _So these are the feelings that didn’t want to come out,_ he realizes, through a sour smile. The closer he got to Victor, the less he wanted to tell him the truth, and the more he could pretend what they almost had was genuine, and possible, and right.

_What did I tell you? It’s dangerous._

But it’s all wrong. Everything is wrong, and broken, and Yuuri can’t look Victor in the face as he absorbs the new information with furrowed brows. Now he went and did it: how is he going to face the rest of the Grand Prix feeling like this? The truth is out, no doubt Victor will stop his little game of _do we or don’t we_ , because if there is someone to blame, it’s him! Yuuri never even wanted all of this, he might as well tell him- but didn’t he already? In the parking lot? Exhaustion doesn’t help, catching up to him, clawing its way up the bumps of his spine.

That’s when the wind is knocked out of him, again, by Victor's mouth and the words he can say so carelessly, that continuously shape and reform Yuuri’s world all around him.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I already know.”

The first words that come to mind: _it’s wrong._

“It’s wrong,” he repeats aloud, ribcage squeezing his heart to a pulp. “It’s- it’s all wrong, you shouldn’t have known, I-”

“I’ve known for a while,” says Victor a tad louder, effectively interrupting Yuuri. He hangs his head, almost in shame, though a hint of a smile stretches lazily across his lips, as if he was remembering something.

(“I’m _unmarked_ ,” says the boy with warm skin and bright eyes, clinging to Victor and digging his nails into the fabric of his suit. His breath reeks of champagne, his hair is a mess and there’s an undone tie hanging from his neck, but still, he’s absolutely breathtaking and Victor has never felt like this. He repeats, “I’m unmarked,” right in his ear, and he shudders, mirroring Victor, and the lights of the chandelier bring out the warmest shade of brown in his eyes as he adds, staring up at Victor as if he was looking right into the sun, “help me, please? You’re the only one who can.”)

Victor's smile cracks under a sharp exhale.

(Then, the boy never came back.)

“You told me, once.”

(Turns out there are thousands of versions of Katsuki Yuuri, and Victor has fallen in love with all of them.)

“I never-”

“You did,” is Victor's firm reassurance, looking right into Yuuri’s eyes with clashing uncertainty. “Don’t you remember? At the banquet in Sochi.”

Yuuri hears himself talk and is startled, as if a completely different voice came out of him. “I was drunk. I remember nothing. I was so drunk, I…”

Sitting up, Victor places a comforting hand on Yuuri’s shoulder- he slaps it away, though, and Victor gasps. “Please, believe me Yuuri, I can show you the photos.”

“No,” barks Yuuri, sitting up as well and running tired hands all over his face. “No, I believe you- it’s just like me, doing things like that… looking for attention when I should keep to myself.”

There’s silence, and Yuuri follows up with a sarcastic snort. “I’m such a mess.”

He doesn’t look at Victor as the drone of his voice reaches his ears and says, “you asked me to help you. You said I was the only one who could.”

“I don’t want to hear this-”

“I never saw you at Worlds and when your video went viral I thought I could do something, so I came here to be your coach. And you were so cold, I thought you regretted your request. It never occurred to me that you didn’t remember.”

And everything falls into place, just like that.

“Were you talking about that kind of help? Or about your soulmark? I never knew. Maybe I never will,” continues Victor, and he huffs an insincere laugh that claws at Yuuri’s ears, “but I want to ask you one thing.”

Yuuri blinks, startled, as Victor's forehead is pushed up against his, and the dark waves crashing inside him calm down.

“If you are unmarked,” he murmurs, tilting his head and never breaking skin contact, “and I have my own, and I’m your coach...” he caresses the inside of Yuuri’s wrist with tentative fingertips-

“Then, how do you explain this?”

Yuuri knows exactly what _this_ is, now.

_Breathe._

And it hurts so much his eyes are on fire.

“What do you mean,” he says, he doesn’t ask.

_Breathe._

“I love you.”

_Keep breathing._

“No,” he sobs, his eyes still on fire but no tears to be found. “No, you don’t. You can’t.”

“I love you,” he repeats, a reverence in his voice that grates at Yuuri’s throat and crushes his ribcage and its insides with decision.

“I know,” because it’s true, he _knows_ , but, “it’s wrong- you have your own mark, and-”

“We can be wrong together,” tries Victor, he tries and tries and there are tears sliding down his face. “I have no one but you.”

_‘You can be the most selfish person on Earth, if you want to’._

Yuuri closes his eyes.

_I created this._

Victor's sobs are quiet, carving a hole in Yuuri’s heart with clinical precision. “I had a soulmate,” he reveals, clearing a path through them. “He’s been gone from this world for a long time.”

Silence, because _I created this_ and _it’s all my fault._

“I don’t even remember his face.”

Victor says something else, but his words are muffled by stronger sobs and Yuuri keeps his eyes closed, unfazed. _I created this and it’s all my fault_ , he repeats, again and again.

“You asked me for help but I was the one who needed it,” he says, sparing a spiteful laugh to himself, tightening the grip on Yuuri’s wrist. “I fell for you, and it’s the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me.”

As Victor caresses Yuuri’s jaw with shaking, reverent fingers, Yuuri gasps and opens his eyes, having almost forgotten the sound of his own voice.

“I’m tired,” confesses Victor, another sob shaking the slumped line of his shoulders. “I want whatever it was that they tore away from me, all those years ago.”

A sob, again, as Yuuri slaps his hand away, again.

“Please, say something, Yuuri,” he begs, voice cracking under the strength of Yuuri’s resolve. “Will you love me?”

_I’m the worst thing that ever happened to Victor._

“I can’t.”

Just a single, shaky breath comes out of Victor, as he closes his eyes and bites his lower lip.

“Let’s get some sleep now,” tries Yuuri, every stretch of skin he possesses set on fire by guilt and remorse. He lays down on the bed with mechanical movements, willing himself to ignore Victor's sniffling as he imitates him, turning his back to him.

He could ask him to leave, to go back to his own room.

He, the epitome of unreasonable selfishness, doesn’t want to. The anger inside of him is deep as the ocean, and it withers, as he faces the first dreamless sleep in years.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did tell you chapter five was the last one before the storm didn't i  
> what can i say. i'm 200% not sorry. or am i. confusing. though yuuri is way more confused than me. poor thing  
> also a 7k chapter is Wild for my writing standards. 4k used to be a big number for me but now Not Anymore  
> "bolshoe spasibo" means "thank you very much", which is surely the same thing you all want to tell me after reading this chapter! lol  
> hope you enjoyed! see you next time ♥


	7. In the deepest ocean, the bottom of the sea, your eyes - they turn me

 

 

 

Yuuri wakes up approximately seven minutes before the alarm and it’s very annoying.

Sitting up in bed, he rubs at his eyes, the only background noise being the shower running: Victor must have set an earlier alarm - _or maybe he didn’t get any sleep._ Memories of last night come flooding in, and Yuuri falls back on the bed, sighing at the ceiling: the beginnings of a headache start knocking at the inside of his skull, and he pushes the heels of his hands into closed eyes. Rubbing at them again for good measure, he swallows thickly as the water stops running; Victor comes out after a few minutes, fully clothed, clean smell radiating from his skin and hair.

Yuuri’s heart skips a beat as Victor mumbles something about going back to his room to pack his things up. While Yuuri expected the usual tension that follows a pretty big argument, he’s shocked at how much it _hurts._ He builds convincing apologies as he showers and brushes his teeth, hoping that Victor will find it in him to understand how hard it is to, well…

His head is throbbing.

Eventually, Yuuri doesn’t tell him anything; they’re quiet on the way to the airport, Victor's gaze focused on everything except Yuuri. He seems to be faring a lot better, despite the way he cried himself to sleep and the broken heart he is probably nursing. Had it happened to anyone else, Yuuri wouldn’t think much of it: he made his reasons clear, there’s really nothing he can do about his inability to reciprocate Victor's feelings. If he had a matching soulmark, of course he could! Maybe if that happened they’d be together now, over the moon, and Victor wouldn’t be so grey and cold and distant.

He can’t help but feel guilty, anyway- because he never saw, he realizes, how much of an impact his breakdowns can have on other people: especially on those who love him, case in point Victor.

Yuuri wonders, how did his parents feel the day he revealed to them he was unmarked, and then proceeded to cry himself to sleep for weeks? What about Mari when he interrupted their phone call after she told him Vicchan was dead? What did Celestino and Phichit think exactly of his sudden retirement? Remorses threaten to split his body open, showing the world all the horrible things he’s done to others without even realizing it. It took Victor Nikiforov, of all people, to stop smiling and laughing at anything, acting broody and detached, to understand just how much the people who love him were hurt by his actions, and to understand how poorly Yuuri handled his own feelings for most of his life.

They’ve been on a plane for two hours and a half when Victor startles Yuuri, telling him out of the blue, “I’m sorry.” And Yuuri might just combust right here and now. Why is _Victor_ apologizing?

“I’m new to all this, I- I don’t know how to act.”

Yuuri’s answer comes out strained. “You don’t have to apologize,” he says, but is it the truth? He’d lie if he said he didn’t enjoy Victor telling him he’s sorry: bitterness stews in his belly, making his throat feel dry.

“Last night was a mess. I think I have to, instead. A lot.”

The resolution in Victor's voice tears Yuuri’s gaze away from him: he settles for staring at the front seat, following its bright orange and blue pattern around as if it could lead him to the right words to say. Eventually, he settles for changing subject, telling him not to worry, which is surprisingly encouraged by Victor himself in the form of a relieved sigh.

A primal, dark part of himself stirs languidly at how Yuuri keeps pulling, and pulling, and pulling at the rope that ties him to Victor - marveling at the way it never snaps, no matter what Yuuri says or does: Victor always comes back, waiting for more, content with the smallest scraps he can afford.

Shaking his head, Yuuri wills away those thoughts.

“Are you going to resign after the final?”

It’s something he never thought about in detail: it’s like finding a stray button on the ground, and only then realizing it’s missing from your shirt. Sudden yet logical.

Victor looks down, fidgeting with the buttons of his coat. “I don’t know yet,” he says, the blue of his eyes muted, deep in thought: his profile doesn’t look as striking as it normally does, his lips are chapped, hair brushed half-heartedly. Again, guilt stirs in the pit of Yuuri’s stomach, chanting _you created this and it’s all your fault,_ over and over, and Yuuri swears to himself, _I’ll be a better person then;_ covering Victor's wrist with his hand and smiling down at the slight contrast of their skin, he thinks, _I want him to smile again._

He removes his hand later, catching sight of Victor's lower lip wobbling every so slightly.

  
  


The Rostelecom Cup is a harsh reminder to Yuuri that being on the podium is necessary if he wants to qualify for the final. Finishing in third place at the Cup of China momentarily eased his mind from those worries, and right when he steps inside the rink on the day of the short program he feels like cold water is coursing through his veins: he’ll be competing against Yuri, who no doubt refined his programs to perfection, and Canada’s wonder, Jean Jacques ‘JJ’ Leroy. The best he can do is probably getting another bronze.

Victor's voice cuts through the thick fog of his thoughts as he inquires, “did you talk to Yurio?”

He did: Yuuri ran into him at the hotel the day before, sharing an elevator as they both returned to their respective rooms. Leaving Victor in the media’s grasp for interviews and such, Yuuri went ahead on his own: Yuri commented on that, with his usual biting words that slammed Victor's status as an irresponsible coach, leaving his student alone to appease the cameras. Yuuri didn’t think much of it, until now: he can clearly see Yuri talking with Yakov, as he sneaks a few glances their way, seemingly more irritated than usual.

“Yeah. We met in the elevator yesterday.”

“Did he say anything about me?”

Eyebrows knitted together, Yuuri doesn’t miss the way Victor's camera-smile falters the slightest. He’s been keeping that up since they arrived: after what happened at the Cup of China, Victor's genuine smiles have decreased and are often spared to anyone but Yuuri.

“Nothing,” he lies, because Yuuri might be insensitive, but not to the extent of completely destroying his coach’s morale minutes before a competition. Or what’s left of it, anyway. Victor registers Yuuri’s lie with a curt nod of his head, and busies himself with the Makkachin-shaped tissue holder, holding his lower lip between his teeth.

After the warm up, Yuuri steps off the ice and barely looks at Victor as he slaps his blade guards back on, taking confident steps towards Yuri: he notices him and removes his headphones, taking his hood off, too - Yuuri sees it as a considerate gesture for Yuri’s standards, and he infuses the words he wants to say with more courage than before.

“Did you talk to Victor?” he asks, a sly mockery of his coach’s words: Yuri snorts, clearly irritated, and punches his hands into the pockets of his Team Russia jacket.

“Why?”

“Just curious. Did something happen between you two?” asks Yuuri with a shrug, gaining a pointed huff in answer. Gaze intent on the Korean skater on the ice, he says, “I’ve got nothing to say to him. He can fuck off back to Japan for all I care.”

At Yuuri’s hum and instant raise of eyebrows, Yuri’s attention snaps back to him: oh, _now_ he looks positively pissed.

“What.”

“Is it because you wanted him to be your co-”

“ _Absolutely not,_ ” he scoffs, pushing himself back up against the wall, grimacing at the Korean’s double-footed landing on a quad toe loop. “He’s a terrible coach. You didn’t even win gold in China.”

Memories of Yuuri’s breakdown run through his mind, and he has to clear his throat to dissipate the mounting tension.

“That was my fault-”

“Listen, katsudon. I’m going to skate in a few minutes, and the last thing I want is to talk about that asshole.”

“I know, but-”

“Shut the fuck up,” is Yuri’s curt answer, and he walks away without even sparing a glance in Yuuri’s direction. Sweat rolls down the back of his neck, and he exhales shakily, returning by Victor's side: clearly, it’s a trend for Russian skaters to not look him in the face today, so he works it out on his own.

It’s plain to see that Victor isn’t doing well. He refuses to talk it out, continuously reassuring Yuuri that everything is fine, and he just needs to come to terms with his feelings: Yuuri initially trusted him, trusted Victor's skill to deal with his own problems and go back to their normal coach-student dynamic in a matter of days.

The problem is, the real Victor never made it back: instead, Yuuri is stuck with this watered down version of who was once his closest friend, there’s no denying it. Now he’s just his coach.

A horrible coach, judging by Yuri’s words.

_He’s not wrong._

Understandably too busy in his own head, Victor failed to train Yuuri properly in the weeks after the Cup of China: he was mostly nodding at whatever Yuuri did on the ice, suggesting changes only a couple of times; he put on his charming camera smile when around Yuuri’s parents, and faded back to his gloomy self as soon as they were alone. Never discussing their strained relationship out loud, and facing the consequences of their mutual silence on this very important day, Yuuri can feel Victor slipping out of his reach- and one particular feeling claws its way to Yuuri’s heart, leaving increasingly panicked thoughts in its wake.

“It’s almost time,” sighs Victor, standing up with what looks like tremendous effort. Yuuri nods and follows him, shedding his jacket in the process and handing it to him.

It could be a coincidence that Yuri has stopped texting after the Cup of China: Yuuri initially attributed it to increased practice time, though he has to admit, the way Yuri talked about Victor, and how he never even looked at him in the span of two days…

“Yuuri?”

Eventually, the ropes are going to snap.

“Ah- yes. Sorry.”

Victor clears his throat, weary, and forces a tight smile around the words he speaks, elbows resting on the barrier. “Do your best, okay?”

The twinkle in his blue eyes is long gone, the bags under his eyes more prominent, and when he notices his crooked tie, Yuuri can’t stand it anymore.

_You’re pitiful._

Is this how it’s going to be, until the end? Victor all gloomy and sad and broken-hearted, crashing waves of guilt rippling through Yuuri’s body? This isn’t the version of Victor he wants, and he knows- he deserves better, now.

It’s dangerous, but he’ll allow himself to slip up, this time.

“You told me you wanted to be satisfied by my skating, right?”

Victor perks up at Yuuri’s hard tone, breathing harder through the nose. Anger? Embarrassment? Yuuri might never know.

“Watch me,” he says, muscles pulled taut by determination, as he skates to center ice.

Breathing steadily, rolling his shoulders, Yuuri shifts into the starting position and dips into the dark feelings stretching around his heart, punching the air out of him one lung at a time.

He knows what to do.

_If you’re going to be my coach until the final-_

he outright _smirks_ in Victor's direction, not an ounce of shame to be found in his body,

_-love me all you want._

The ‘eros’ persona fits him perfectly, now: Yuuri feels enticing, as he smiles through his step sequence. He knows he’s good at it, and as he lands a very high and powerful triple axel he feels on top of the world.

_There’s no way he can refuse me if I keep this up._

A single thought carries him through the program, making his arm movements more prominent, his footwork more fluid and natural, the spins faster-

_I want him to stay for as long as I need him._

Landing all his jumps, Yuuri ignores the strain in his legs as he enters his last combination spin.

_I want him to smile at me like he did before._

Yuuri strikes his ending pose right as the music ends: the crowd’s reaction is deafening, covering the rink with more presents than usual, perhaps putting more pressure on the Czech skater after him. Thoughts jumbled by the fatigue and the emotion still flowing in his body, Yuuri smiles at Victor on their way to the kiss and cry: of course, Victor's reply is lukewarm as expected, but blood is pounding in Yuuri’s ears and the crowd’s approval of his program is still bending his spine with confidence, so he grabs Victor's tie and tugs it sharply, as he stumbles forward, until Yuuri’s lips are barely grazing Victor's earlobe.

“Are you satisfied now?” he breathes, feeling powerful, and confident, and most of all _wanted._ He knows for a fact that Victor wants him, be it as a student or as a lover: and while he can’t want him back in the way Victor desires the most, he can spell it out to him with his blades on the ice- that no matter what his feelings have to say, Victor can want him as much as he likes to.

_Make me feel wanted. I need you._

Victor doesn’t answer, probably too taken aback by Yuuri’s boldness, and filing it away as a rhetorical question: Yuuri fixes his tie and places a hand on Victor's chest, feeling warm and strong muscle underneath soft fabric as he pushes him a step back. His lips part, allowing a soft gasp to roll off his tongue, and Yuuri’s stomach is engulfed in warmth, for some reason he can’t explain.

It does feel good. Very.

Sitting in the kiss and cry, Yuuri’s heart overflows with joy at seeing a new personal best pop out on the screen: he knows he skated well, and delivered the program the way Victor envisioned months ago. He turns his head and spots a proud smile on Victor's face, blush still present on his sharp cheekbones.

Yuuri isn’t surprised in the least as Victor comes up with an excuse not to watch Yuri’s short program: he concedes, following Victor to a more secluded place as he requested, catching his breath with his trusted water bottle in hand. As Victor turns around sharply, placing a hand on the wall, effectively stopping Yuuri, he gulps and now it’s his lips that part on a gasp.

“What game are you playing?”

The brightness resting peacefully in Yuuri’s throat cracks under Victor's sharp question. “I’m not playing games.”

“Explain the tie pulling then.”

“I was-”

“You’re mocking me,” spits Victor, running a hand through his hair. _Definitely a nervous gesture._ ”You think you’re doing me a favour? Leading me on?”

“I’m playing the role _you_ assigned me,” is Yuuri’s answer, brimming with anger: he knows Victor is reacting like this out of exhaustion and rejection, and he knows he might have forced his hand on him; but he also knows there’s no hope he’ll believe him if he said he enjoyed doing it.

As to _why_ he enjoyed it, he’ll unravel that another time.

At Victor's pointed silence, Yuuri shakes his head, trying to reassess himself: before he can say anything, his phone buzzes loudly in Victor's pocket.

“Someone’s calling,” he announces, fishing it out quickly. He pushes the phone in Yuuri’s hands and turns away, sighing: Yuuri shoots him a frustrated glare, as he answers Mari’s call.

“ _Yuuri, sorry if I’m calling during a competition,_ ” she says, out of breath, and it’s like a punch to the stomach, because Yuuri _knows_ that tone of voice, the tone Mari once used when she told him over the phone that-

_“Makkachin ate some steamed buns, we didn’t hear anything and when we found him they were stuck in his throat- so Minako brought him to the vet. I’m sorry, I should have been more careful, I… I don’t think he’s going to make it.”_

_Not again._

“Victor,” he says aloud, and he can see Victor turning around in his peripheral vision at hearing his name. “I’m sending Victor back,” he tells Mari, reassuring her that no, it’s not her fault, and he has to end the call right now to book the first flight available for Victor to go back. As soon as the call ends, he can feel tears pulling behind his eyes, but he looks up and faces Victor's questioning look without hesitation.

“Makkachin is sick,” he says, and Victor's face _crumbles_ , breath shuddering in his throat, “he ate steamed buns and they got stuck in his throat. You have to go back to Japan-”

“I can’t go, I’m your coach and there’s the free skate-”

“I don’t _fucking_ care about any of that!”

It’s bitterness that fills his mouth, makes his tongue snap across his teeth as he speaks, and digs his fingernails further into his palm: _not again,_ he recites in his mind, nostrils flaring at Victor's words.

“Stop trying to be a model coach, I don’t care and I don’t want it! Makkachin is in danger, go back to Japan and do it right now!”

“Yuuri, calm down!”

He registers, after a couple of frantic breaths and blinking through his blurred vision, that Victor is hugging him. Sniffling and hiding his face into the crook of Victor's neck, Yuuri whispers, “don’t make the same mistake I did. Go stay by his side.”

Victor nods, holding Yuuri tighter, as if his actions could replace the words Yuuri needs to hear.

  
  


The standings for the short program see JJ in first place, with Yuuri following right behind, and Yuri coming in fourth. With Makkachin in danger, Yuuri can’t find it in himself to be satisfied about his results, and his gaze is glued to the floor as Victor loads his suitcase on the cab, driver waiting patiently in the front seat.

“Yakov told me he’ll be with you at the kiss and cry,” he explains hurriedly, adjusting his scarf tighter around his neck. “He can be rough but don’t worry about it. Listen to his advice, because it’s great advice, and remember to turn the final quad into a triple if you’re not feeling up to it- I know you need the points, but there’s no need to overdo it, you-”

“Victor, don’t worry about me.”

Yuuri’s reminder is spoken with a soft voice, and Victor seems to appreciate it: there’s no doubt Yuuri’s earlier outburst played a part in bringing his morale even lower.

“Okay,” he concedes, a puff of breath swirling out of his lips. Cheeks painted red by the cold, hair disheveled and fidgety hands, he looks…

“Adorable,” says Yuuri quietly, and Victor blinks at him.

“What?”

“No- nothing. Text me when you arrive. And let me know about Makkachin as soon as possible.”

Victor nods, squeezing Yuuri’s shoulder before he climbs into the cab, leaving him to face the free skating alone tomorrow.

  
  


Yuuri is the first to arrive at the rink, costume feeling tighter than usual under his tracksuit, a knot stuck halfway down his throat that just won’t budge. He texted Victor that morning, asking him for any updates on Makkachin’s health: after that, he turned the phone off, a suggestion that came from his unlucky track record with phone calls received during competitions. He knows Victor will understand, he knows he’ll try to watch him, and that no matter what, there will be scolding and backhanded praising as soon as they reunite.

Somehow, he can’t wait for it.

A good twenty minutes before warm up starts, Yuri and Yakov join him, together with Lilia Baranovskaya: Yuuri can recall Minako gushing about her on many occasions. Knowing she choreographed Yuri’s free program, and that she apparently has very high standards, Yuuri straightens his back as he sits down, looking for her approval for no reason whatsoever; he then nods at Yuri, who scowls and pulls his hood up, offering no answer.

“I don’t know what Vitya tells you before you go,” says Yakov out of the blue, startling Yuuri: his expression is stern, his English stilted, but Yuuri appreciates anyway. It’s _the_ Yakov Feltsman, after all. “Don’t expect hugs and hand holding. I’m not as soft as him.”

“He’s never soft with me,” is Yuuri’s prompt reply: Yuri’s big, fat snort and Yakov’s eyebrows shooting up to his former hairline, then, help him realize what he just said.

“...I- I mean,” he stutters, covering his face and sighing, “he can scold properly, too. He does that all the time.”

Yuri’s previous snort morphs into a shameless laugh, and he pulls his hood back down, turning to face Yuuri. “Did he teach you how to kiss someone’s ass too?”

“He didn’t-”

“Katsuki.”

Yakov’s voice cuts Yuuri’s rebuttal with no hesitation, and he reluctantly looks up at him, confronting his unreadable expression.

“Do what you’re able to do, in the best way you can. That will be enough.”

Even Yuri is silent, as Yakov fixes his hat, irritation mounting around the hard lines of his face. “I said, that will be enough!”

“Y-yes!”

Yuuri stops himself before the word ‘coach’ can stumble out of his mouth, and takes a hesitant breath as Yakov stomps away, towards Lilia. Yuri sighs, picking at the zip of his jacket.

“Do you know why the idiot is so sad?”

It takes Yuuri a few seconds before he can understand who Yuri is talking about: he nods, standing up as well. Yuri doesn’t seem to like the height difference and a scowl blooms on his face, charging the words he speaks with venom.

“You. It’s your fault.”

“What?”

Ears pounding and arms sweating under his costume, Yuuri shifts his weight as he stands before Yuri, suddenly feeling in the wrong place at the wrong time. “What do you mean?” he repeats, voice uncertain.

“He left the ice to coach you because you inspired him, probably. I don’t know. And he’s not happy with you, I can tell, because he looks like Makkachin died or something.”

The lump in Yuuri’s throat crumbles, leaving room for the mounting anger curling around his spine. _Yuri knows nothing about it. Don’t be stupid._

“It’s none of your business,” he shoots back, wondering how hard he can pull on Yuri’s rope before it snaps. Wondering if, after losing Victor steadily, day by day, he can taint another relationship with his shortcomings.

Very likely.

“It is,” says Yuri, seething, taking a step forward. “He’s… you don’t even _know_ what he is to me. And now you’re taking him away from what he loves. You’re ruining him.”

“You know nothing,” answers Yuuri, because it’s the truth.

“I know about the marks.”

_No you don’t._

Sweat paints the small of his back, as he blurts out, “N- no, no you-”

“Yes, I do,” whispers Yuri, now closer than he ever dared, his accent thick and unpleasant to Yuuri’s ears. “As I said, you don’t know who Victor is to me. And he left us to be with you, and he looks like shit, and I hate it. I hate him, and I hate you.”

Refusing to be brought on the brink of tears, Yuuri answers with a furios nod, and a bitter smile on his lips: he isn’t going down without a fight.

“And as I said, you know nothing,” he repeats, voice shaking: his vision is swimming, but he can make out Yuri’s widened eyes. He clearly didn’t expect to get such a reaction out of Yuuri, who stood up to him in that bathroom in Sochi, last year. “Victor is…”

_What is Victor to me?_

A fire lights up somewhere behind his stomach, clinging at the insides of his body, everywhere it can reach.

“He’s my coach,” he blurts out, “and my friend, and…”

“You’ve got balls of steel, katsudon.”

Yuuri blinks through his tears at that. “Huh?”

Sparing him a rare, lopsided smile, Yuri puts his hands in his pockets, fisting the fabric tightly. “Stop being an idiot. It’s time for warm up.”

His previous words, _I know about the marks,_ ring in Yuuri’s ears and everywhere in his body as he sniffs and unzips his jacket: he knows he’ll have to talk to Yuri about their heated exchange, after the free skate. Trying not to let his harsh words bother him, Yuuri steps on the ice, burning from the inside.

  
  


(He stares at his phone screen, at the still unread message he got from Yuuri hours ago, and his soulmark aches, warm to the touch.)

  
  


Yuri’s free program goes without a hitch, putting him in first place with a very good score: the Italian skater takes the ice now, and Yuuri removes his headphones, trying to clear his mind.

He doesn’t know what Victor means to Yuri: he can’t say anything to that. Back when Yuri was in Hasetsu too, it was clear that they were more than rinkmates. Yuuri could say Victor was like an older brother to him, with all the teasing and genuine affection and the way Yuri reacted after losing.

The pieces are slowly coming together, and Yuuri runs a hand through gelled hair, inhaling deeply: he can’t possibly know how much Victor's departure impacted on Yuri, and he feels guilty to a degree. He stole Russia’s living legend away from the ice, and tore his heart-shaped smiles off his face, too: there’s no way he can’t feel bad about it.

Something changed in him after the Cup of China, though, and he’d be stupid to deny it.

 _I shouldn’t feel like this,_ he thinks, biting his lower lip, longing for Victor's voice, his touch, his anything- everything he will offer to Yuuri. _It’s not right._

Then again, they are tired thoughts. How many times did he repeat those sentences to himself, again?

Is it time?

_Can I stop?_

It’s with Victor's name on his lips in a silent cry for help that he skates his free program, it’s with longing coursing through his body, cold and real and haunting: it’s with the quadruple flip he tries again, at the end, it’s in the way he falls down hard, pain setting his thigh on fire-

 _What am I supposed to do now?,_ he asks himself, limping off the ice, sitting in the kiss and cry with a wince.

“What was that!?”

Yakov’s shout brings him back to reality: he turns towards him, still panting, blinking.

“At least practice such a difficult jump properly before putting it in your programs! Do you want to break your legs before the final? You’re just like Vitya- so reckless,” he says, and keeps talking even as Yuuri’s score- a very high one, to boot- is announced.

_Reckless._

The word rolls around in his mind as he accepts an ice pack with a distant smile, leaving the kiss and cry, sparing JJ’s program a frown, not even hearing the music over Yakov’s loud voice banging against the walls of his skull.

Maybe that’s exactly what he needs to be.

  
  


JJ wins gold with two clean, high-difficulty programs under his belt: Yuuri follows in second place, and Yuri ends up third, the grimace on his face oozing unpleasantness.

Interviews are thankfully kept short and boring, and Yuuri is relieved to change into comfier clothes and wander outside the stadium, still shivering in his bulkiest coat: his mind is elsewhere, and the weight of the silver medal on his chest is nonexistent.

All he can think about is Victor.

_Ah, of course._

“Oi, katsudon.”

Turning around, Yuuri’s answer is muffled by a warm, paper bag that smells suspiciously like pork and is pushed right in his face: he takes a step back, tugging his mask down to speak properly.

“Yurio.”

“It’s almost your birthday, isn’t it?”

Yuuri’s heart skips a beat.

“Don’t just- stand there like that, I asked a question!”

Judging by Yuri’s blush, surely not caused by the cold, Yuuri smirks. “Yeah, almost.”

The aforementioned paper bag is pushed in his hands: Yuuri opens it, inhaling the delicious smell of… katsudon? And something else he can’t quite place.

“What are these?”

“Pirozhki. My grandad made them.”

“But they smell like-”

“They’re _katsudon pirozhki,_ alright? Happy birthday and stuff. They’re for me too, so don’t be a pig and give me some.”

There are tears in Yuuri’s eyes, again, as he bites into a pirozhki, the crispness of the crust a delicious contrast to the rich stuffing of pork inside. “This is… I…”

“Amazing, right? There’s a reason they’re my favourites. I asked him to do them this way because katsudon is good- I mean, decent.”

“You don’t have to talk like that, you know.”

It’s Yuri’s turn to let disbelief take over his face: wide, green eyes are staring at Yuuri as he gulps down, stomach filled with warmth. “Like what.”

“I… don’t know what Victor means to you, you were right. And I’m sorry,” he confesses, ducking his head. “But I wish I was _something_ to you, too.”

“I don’t do friends,” answers Yuri, with the most unconvincing shrug of his shoulders.

“A rival, then. I got silver, after all.”

Yuri’s curse-filled outburst is comical, and Yuuri laughs openly at the way his voice squeaks and the paper bag crumbles in his hands, when it’s empty and they swallow the last of the pirozhki, and the first snowflakes start falling, in complete silence.

“Thank you, Yurio.”

“No way. Keep the sentimental bullshit to yourself.”

“Thank you anyway.”

Yuri’s ‘anytime’ is muffled, as he covers his mouth with a scarf and climbs into his grandfather’s car.

  
  


One thing is made crystal clear in Yuuri’s mind, as he sighs in the middle of the terminal. The flight back to Fukuoka took longer than he liked, especially when Victor never replied to his texts and never answered his calls and, most importantly, never told him anything about Makkachin’s condition.

Granted, it’s only been thirty-six hours since they separated, give or take: in Yuuri’s mind, though, time seemed to stretch further than allowed.

Being alone on the plane allowed Yuuri to think at length about what he should tell Victor: it’s impossible to go back to what they were months ago, and he knows that very well. Respecting his feelings is top priority now, especially when Yuuri isn’t allowed to feel such things, and can’t even imagine how love feels like on the tip of his tongue.

_Except it’s not true._

Not anymore.

With sluggish steps, he recalls asking his parents about the nature of soulmarks, about the fated reunion of a halved soul inhabiting two bodies at the same time, bonding two individuals together for life: whether they wanted it or not, the feelings were there, kicking their hearts into gear.

_Unmarked people can’t possibly have romantic feelings._

Then what is the near-constant itch that torments the length of his back and clogs up his throat and makes him feel…

_What was the word?_

He’s about to turn his phone on when he hears excited barking on the other side of the glass.

A shock of silver hair- then, he runs.

Seeing Victor on the other side of the glass, with a very healthy Makkachin following him as he mirrors Yuuri’s run, ignites a chemical reaction somewhere between his lungs that Yuuri can’t name, or explain. The door slides open, and Victor stays still, in front of him, catching his breath, looking disheveled and sleep deprived and the most beautiful version of him Yuuri has ever seen, the version that isn’t ready to scold or praise or joke: it’s the one that waited, and waited, for his return.

Next thing he knows, his arms are clinging to Victor's waist, parted lips brushing against his coat.

“Yuuri,” he breathes, his voice shaking. Reciprocating the hug, Victor tightens his arms around Yuuri’s shoulders, nose diving into the hair at the top of this head.

“Makkachin is alright,” is the first thing Yuuri says, and Victor gasps, holding him tighter.

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer, I-”

“I thought about many things while we were separated.”

Yuuri can’t see Victor's face, but his bewilderment is evident in the way his grip around Yuuri loosens a bit. “I thought about us… about what you told me in Beijing.”

Once again, _stay by my side and never leave._

“I’m glad to have you as my coach.”

Once again, it goes unspoken.

“Yuuri.”

“Please stay until the end of the season.”

Or maybe it doesn’t.

Victor breaks their hug at those words: he holds Yuuri’s shoulders, searching for something in his eyes, thankfully ignoring the few tears that slipped out of Yuuri’s control.

“You want me to stay.”

It’s not a question: surprise pulls at Victor's flushed cheekbones, tentative smile clashing with furrowed eyebrows and frantic, blinking eyes.

“I never wanted you to go.”

Yuuri’s voice breaks somewhere in the middle: he dives back into Victor's arms, again, grabbing the front of his coat, and it feels wrong, but it feels _wonderful,_ too.

_I’m a horrible person._

As Victor hugs him back again, he speaks, voice quivering with an emotion Yuuri can’t decode.

“Thank you,” he says, in the language they both can speak.

  
  


 

 

(Victor will tell him in Barcelona. He isn’t ready- most importantly, Yuuri isn’t ready.)

 

(He will return to the ice after the Grand Prix Final.)

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can you believe we're almost at the end..... i'm not ready to let this universe go  
> i posted weekly but i fear next chapter is going to take longer than that since it's the last one and it's the grand prix final and there are many loose ends to deal with. so yeah who knows how long it will take. i guess around two weeks?  
> as always, hope you enjoyed! and get ready for chapter 8, it will be.... very..... thorny. lol


	8. One day I am going to grow wings, a chemical reaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before you read, i'd like to thank ALL of you who read, left a kudos, commented, bookmarked, subscribed- thank you SO MUCH! your love gave me inspiration and confidence, and i couldn't be more grateful!
> 
> this is for you!

 

 

The ride back from Fukuoka to Hasetsu consists, for the most part, in Victor dozing off with his head resting on Yuuri’s shoulder; Makkachin is quiet and obedient, laying at their feet, and Yuuri sets his gaze somewhere between him and the window, as the train drones on towards their destination.

Wetting his dry lips with an equally dry tongue, Yuuri goes over his conversation with Victor at the airport, again and again: the warm puddle of affection at Victor's soft-spoken _thank you_ is still present in Yuuri’s stomach, and the unspoken certainty of him being his coach all the way to the final - and perhaps even further than that - gives him the necessary amount of energy to resist from dozing off as well. There are still many things he wants to tell Victor, their strained relationship taking top priority. It would be a lie to say that their bond isn’t the most important Yuuri’s had in years, maybe all his life: Victor gives him strength, he contributed heavily to take Yuuri’s love for skating back, and most importantly he taught him all kinds of things, especially love.

Victor stirs, mumbles, and dozes off again, Yuuri’s shoulder probably digging into his cheek. Warmth and affection wash over Yuuri all over again, and looking down on Victor, at his greasy hair and crumpled coat, makes Yuuri want to shake him awake and spot the exact shade of surprise in the blue of his eyes, and maybe tear a sincere laugh out of his mouth while he’s at it: he wants to see him smile _like that_ again, and only Yuuri knows what ‘like that’ means, as it should be-

 _You’re too far gone,_ sighs what is for now the smallest, most insignificant part of his mind. _Beyond saving, for sure._

Yuuri finds he has no answer, as he rests his cheek on top of Victor's head and smiles to himself, trapped in a momentary bliss he feels he doesn’t fully deserve.

 

(The problem is - they’re on parallel tracks.)

(In the few days of training before the final, Victor notices small changes here and there: Yuuri smiles wider as he lands clean quads more often, he accepts Victor's stray touches and apparently encourages them - his eyelashes almost _flutter,_ or perhaps it’s a trick of the light. Not to mention the way he sits closer to Victor's side at dinner, and lingers in the doorway as he bids him goodnight.)

(Victor would say he’s… flirting?)

(Then, he remembers it’s _Yuuri_ , and flirting is not an option. Not anymore.)

(It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate his effort, but Yuuri’s thought processes are an intricate maze that he never was ready to unravel, and maybe will never be. After that night in Beijing, Victor swore to himself he would never try anything on Yuuri again, for his sake, both personal and professional: sure, it hurts a lot, to be torn apart at the seams once again, but Yuuri doesn’t deserve to suffer for something he has no control over.)

(And right when Victor had made up his mind about what to do after the Final-

 _I never wanted you to go._ )

 

(Unfair.)

  


**I - Everybody leaves if they get the chance, and this is my chance**

 

“Are you alright, Victor?”

Before he starts thinking of a suitable answer, Victor glares at his phone for a good ten seconds: then his head whips up, camera smile ready, a strained “yeah” coming out of his mouth.

Yuuri isn’t five years old anymore, though.

“You aren’t.”

As if he could find some help in the flocks of people moving past them, back and forth through the airport lobby, Victor's gaze flies around before he crumples up into a sigh, shoulders bowed. “I’m a bit tired. I haven’t slept much.”

“Victor.”

No answer, as Victor goes back to his phone: Yuuri puts a gloved hand on the screen, effectively covering it, as Victor draws his eyebrows together in annoyance and looks up at him.

“Please, tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Yuuri,” he starts, with another sigh, “you’ll be competing in two days. I can’t put more pressure on you.”

Swallowing down the warmth on his tongue at Victor's concern, Yuuri smiles up at him, and lowers his voice. “I’m not made of glass.”

‘I know’ should be the right words coming out of Victor's mouth - of course, they aren’t.

“We should go check in at the hotel.”

Surprisingly, there’s no bitterness quaking inside Yuuri: there’s something like acceptance, in the way his own fingers trail on Victor's phone as he removes his hand. “Can we talk about it later tonight, then?”

“...we can.”

Victor averts his eyes, and Yuuri doesn’t miss the way his mouth twists ever so slightly- but then again, they’re tired and jet lagged and should probably get some rest before talking.

Probably.

 

Fresh out of the shower, Victor looks ethereal: his skin is glistening under the light of the bedside lamp, as he sits on the bed beside Yuuri, facing the window. Twisting his body to look at him more closely, Yuuri meets Victor's tentative smile as he does the same, toying with his lower lip between freshly brushed teeth. “So,” he starts, a puff of minty breath tumbling out of his mouth.

“So,” continues Yuuri, chuckling. He ignores the sting down his back, the niggling voice that tells him, _nothing good will come out of this,_ but he knows what he wants now and after Victor tells him about his problems, he will…

“I wanted to talk about our relationship as coach and student.”

Steadying himself, Yuuri inhales and nods, allowing Victor to continue. He does the same, lowering his gaze to the floor.

“When I got back to Japan, and I made sure Makkachin was alright, I had a lot of time to think about us.”

The words feel rehearsed, and Yuuri doesn’t like where this is going; he ignores the bitterness bubbling up anyway, and nods again.

“I like being a coach-”

_But?_

“-and your improvements are the proof that none of us wasted their time during these months.”

Yuuri’s impatience must show, because Victor is looking at him now, uncertainty bleeding through every blink of his eyes.

“Just tell me, Victor.”

Taking a deep breath again, Victor averts his gaze again and fidgets with his hands: Yuuri is sure he’s never seen him this bothered before, and every complicated emotion he feels dissolves quickly into genuine worry.

“Victor-”

“He died on the day of my sixteenth birthday.”

A part of Yuuri is glad that Victor's wet hair is covering his eyes: he doesn’t want to remember the look on his face at those words.

“...your soulmate?”

“Yes.”

Silence, because Victor needs his space: if he wants to tell Yuuri about his soulmate, then he has every right to take as much time as he needs. So, Yuuri will wait.

_It’s not like you to be so mindful of others’ feelings._

That is very true.

_You’re so used to trample on them._

But now is not the time to think about how Yuuri _used_ to be.

“We were friends, and went to school together. He was a year older than me, so when we met I was fifteen and he already had his soulmark. I think he lived on the road from my house to the rink, that’s how we knew each other.”

“You think?”

Yuuri spots a bitter smile on Victor's lips, so he focuses on the small hole on his left slipper: much more interesting right now.

“He had poor lungs. Once we were laughing about how it was his soulmark’s fault- he had a rose stem on his ribcage, full of thorns, and he used to say, ‘these little bastards are piercing my lungs and that’s why I cough all the time’. It was really funny until he was hospitalized.”

Silence, again, and Victor's voice is shaking as he says-

“On the day of my birthday I was celebrating with my rinkmates and I thought I’d go visit him because I hadn’t seen him in days, and I wanted to show him the dark red petal that I found on my chest in the morning. And when I got home my mom told me he was gone.”

There’s a very big lump in Yuuri’s throat now, so he says nothing.

“What was his name? I don’t remember. His face? I can’t even tell you the colour of his eyes. Was he a year older than me, or maybe two? I don’t know.”

“Is that-” starts Yuuri, then clears his throat, and tries again, “is that what happens when soulmates…”

“When they die? When they fall out of love with you? When they don’t return your feelings? Probably.”

“What if he talked to you about it? What if he returned your feelings?”

“Maybe, I would have remembered him more clearly. Not that it matters now that he’s dead.”

The bedside lamp fizzles, the only sound between them.

“One day I will forget everything about him.”

“So horrible…”

“It’s funny, in a way.”

The way Victor pipes up is so jarring that Yuuri gasps and looks at him- and he sees him smiling through heavy, fat tears rolling down his cheeks. It’s as if his face forgot he was supposed to cry, too.

“It’s so funny that I got this soulmark on the day he died, isn’t it? That the same dark red petal appeared on him too as he died? It’s _hilarious_ that our soulmark symbolizes mourning, of all things.”

_What should I say?_

Victor snorts, but tears keep falling, and falling- he doesn’t even sob, his shoulders don’t shake, his expression reeks of laughter and all Yuuri can see are wet eyelashes and stormy blue flashing in his irises, so he says nothing and does the first thing he thinks of, hugging Victor tight and close.

“Yuuri?”

“Stop crying, please.”

“I’m not-”

“ _Yes, you are,_ ” he spits, tearing Victor off his body and grabbing his cheek: Victor's eyes widen, as if he could feel the wet weight of his tears just now. “Please, stop. You’re scaring me.”

Yuuri’s words fly right past Victor, whose gaze sets somewhere to his left. His hair is starting to dry, slight waves framing his red-rimmed eyes, as he clears his throat and nods, and says, “I don’t want to guilt you into giving me something you don’t have.”

A curt nod. “So why did you tell me all this?”

“You needed to know.”

“Why?”

Risking a glance, Yuuri is faced with Victor's smile- a fond, proper smile, directed at him and him only, piercing through his lungs.

“I want you to remember my love, so you can remind me when I forget.”

_This is all wrong._

A knee-jerk reaction is all that Yuuri’s brain offers, and he knows it’s not enough, but still, _tell him now,_ ”How could you forget when I _lov-_ ”

“After the final, I’m resigning from my position of coach and coming back to competitive skating.”

_Wrong._

“Why,” says Yuuri - doesn’t ask - in a deadpan voice. His gaze is firm, unblinking eyes diving into the ever-changing blue that wants to drown him.

“Yakov was right,” explains Victor, the dried tears marking his sharp cheeks looking so out of place now. “Everyone was- I’m not cut out to be a coach. I’m too inexperienced, and I should stick to what I can actually do. Which is skating.”

 _And hurting me,_ Yuuri wants to say. Instead, he opts for a quick, “what about me?”

Victor's saccharine smile is so infuriating that Yuuri fists both hands into the comforter and has to stop from snarling.

“You can come with me to Russia! I’m sure Yakov won’t mind. He can be your coach, he’s pretty good.”

“I hate you.”

_Finally._

As Victor's face crumbles, the rope snaps in half, and Yuuri knows- he lost.

“How can you tell me these things, and expect me to nod and smile and… and agree to your stupid ideas? Why are you doing this?”

Victor's face keeps morphing, pain twisting its features, morphing it into an awful creature, as he pleads, “Yuuri-”

“What was the point? Why did you tell me about your soulmate and then say you’re leaving me, and- how dare you,” now Yuuri is growling, and anger mounts, stronger, like it used to when he would claw at his own unmarked skin- it drowns the happiness that still clings to his ribs, smashes it into little pieces and intoxicates Yuuri with pure, unadulterated _rage_.

“Please, if you can just listen to me-”

“You told me we could be wrong together, on that night,” interrupts Yuuri, and of course he tears up, truly the crowning moment of the evening, “and now you’re… doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

“I don’t want to be wrong, then.”

There’s no appropriate feeling, apparently. Not that Yuuri knows of.

Victor goes on, because at this point Yuuri’s face should be blank and deprived of all emotions, as he says, “It’s not your fault but still, you _made_ me like this. You made me suffer again, like I did all those years ago, and I can’t do it. I give up. It’s better like this, for both of us.”

_I was right._

“Leave me alone. Please.”

_What was I thinking, going against fate?_

Somehow, Yuuri notices he isn’t crying anymore. Victor is sitting closer to him, holding his wrist with a sweaty hand, but his gesture is still pleasant and welcome: it’s as if his words never got through the thick wall of warmth still residing within Yuuri’s body.

He thinks to himself, _if I can’t have anything-_

“Can we sleep together?”

Victor is hugging him, which is very weird, because he doesn’t remember even if it happened a few seconds ago, probably-

“Yuuri, please, we shouldn’t-”

“I still want to be your best friend. The best you ever had.”

_-then I’m going to beg for the smallest scraps, just like you did. And it’s only fair._

“...we can do that.”

 

(They’re laying in bed side by side, now, and Yuuri’s body is very warm after he cries- this, Victor knows well.)

 

“I’m glad you’re coming back. I’m serious.”

“Glad you’re glad.”

Silence.

“Yuuri… I’m sorry. Please believe me when I say it’s for the best.”

Blink once, twice, swallow. “Aren’t Russian Nationals in a few weeks?”

Silence, then: “and aren’t you underestimating me? You think I forgot last season’s programs?”

A chuckle, the warmth of Victor's body beside his own. “It feels weird- talking to you like this, after what happened.”

“Yeah, a little.”

Another chuckle, temporary peace, sleep.

 

(He hides his surprise at Yuuri’s blue glasses, in the morning- _were they always blue?_ )

  


**II - Just don’t leave, don’t leave**

 

(Victor Nikiforov will never forget the taste of the champagne he drank on the evening he met Katsuki Yuuri.)

(It started out of the blue, with slurred Japanese words barked at him from the other side of the room: he’d been entertaining other skaters with small talk, clutching his champagne flute tight, alcohol a small salvation from the boring event- then, Yuuri surprised him, and perhaps Victor knew even then that Yuuri surprising him would become a common occurrence.)

(Drunk, disheveled, teary-eyed and with that hideous tie hanging from his neck like a medal, Yuuri pushed past the flocks of curious people, eyeing him as if he could drop dead on the spot.)

( _You,_ he said, pointing a trembling finger, just to burst out laughing immediately after. Yuri put himself between the two of them, physically, snarling at Yuuri, and then Victor laughed, because it was kind of funny, wasn’t it?)

(And for the second time that evening, Yuuri surprised him: he launched himself into Victor's arms, easily overcoming Yuri’s small frame and shoving him to the side in the process. Victor heard Chris chuckle at that, still completely dressed: really, it was a pity that nothing lively happened, even with Yuuri so drunk he could have started a dance off or who knows what- and then, for the third time, the surprise.)

( _I’m unmarked, I’m unmarked, help me please? You’re the only one who can._ )

(Victor had to collect himself, to remember how to speak proper English: Yuri, who heard everything Yuuri muttered, lunged forward and grasped his shoulder, visibly shaking.)

( _Leave him alone,_ to which the answer came in Japanese, and more words after that, now directed at Victor; then, English again, a mantra of _help, help, help,_ and _be my coach, please._ )

(They never saw each other again until Yuuri found him in the onsen, months later, endless questions pushing at the back of his teeth and pleading to come out: _how could someone like me help you? Why did you never contact me after the banquet if you needed my help?_ , and, most recently, _why do you keep running away from me?_ )

 

(Victor has found the answer, now.)

 

“Oi, katsudon.”

Yuri’s voice snaps Yuuri back from daydreaming: he realizes he’s been clutching his water bottle to the point of disfiguring it. Blinking stray thoughts away, he smiles at Yuri, who keeps eyeing him from behind blond, expertly styled locks.

“Your hair looks nice,” is all Yuuri comes up with, and he keeps his head held high because he’s said worse in the past, and it’s not weird to say something like that, isn’t it?

_Pull yourself together._

Thankfully, Yuri grumbles and averts his eyes, and _is that a blush?_ ”You’ve got to thank Lilia for that. And what were you doing just now, spacing out before a competition?”

“Wow, Yurio- are you looking out for me?”

This time, Yuri scoffs but a smile flashes on his lips for a brief instant, offering no verbal answer.

Yuuri is about to say something else, but with the corner of his eye he catches sight of Victor talking animatedly and laughing with Chris: of course, he can’t hide his displeasure and, of course, Yuri picks up on it immediately.

“So you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous-”

“Grow a goddamn backbone, katsudon. Tell him.”

The doubt that they’re having two different conversations crosses Yuuri’s mind, and is gone in an instant. As soon as he opens his mouth to answer, Yuri interrupts him, gaze steady on Victor, mouth a tight, displeased line.

“Is he forgetting things already?”

Yuuri’s heartbeat kicks up, and the bottle crumples up between his fingers. “What- how do you know these things? Did Victor-”

“Look, pig, if you feel something just tell him before it’s too late. I don’t want to deal with that all over again.”

_How can you say this with such a straight face?_

“I’m… I’m very confused, and I still don’t know a lot of things. Just- who is Victor to you? Why do you know all of this?”

Yuri doesn’t reply, and returns Yuuri’s stare with clear and unwavering green eyes.

“And why are you telling me to go on with it when it’s-”

“Wrong? Don’t fuck with me, Katsuki. I don’t want to kick you in the face before a competition.”

Panic flares around the joints in Yuuri’s body, and his breathing speeds up, until-

“Watch my short program closely and you’ll know. Then maybe you’ll stop being such an ass and do what’s better for both of you.”

With that, Yuri walks away, hands fisted in his pockets: Yuuri’s gaze stays glued to the spot, his body fizzling with unknown energy.

“Yuuri.”

Victor's voice reaches Yuuri’s ears with visible uncertainty, a telltale sign that Victor is still treading lightly around him, walking on eggshells: for all that Yuuri hates this behaviour, now he finds temporary relief in it, and sighs, suddenly more comfortable in his own skin. Turning around, he finds Victor's small yet genuine smile, reflecting in the steadiness of his jaw and the way he sets his shoulders, and it hits Yuuri, at such an insignificant observation, that this is how Victor would look, free from his feelings and free from Yuuri himself.

_I want to see that smile again._

“You looked alarmed. What did Yurio tell you?”

“Nothing important,” he lies, with an easy shrug of his shoulder, “he was just telling me to watch his short program closely.”

Victor's smile widens, as he says, “then let’s do it.”

_‘You’ll know’, he said._

A genuine curiosity sparks at the back of Yuuri’s throat, and he nods, shedding his jacket in preparation. He’s skating first, and tries to focus as quickly as possible, ignoring the niggling remarks spoken by Yurio a few minutes before.

It’s when he smiles at Victor at the barrier, before skating off to start his short program, that he realizes what he should do.

 _I hope you’re watching, Yurio,_ he thinks, allowing the darkest part of his mind to come out, finally set free. _I’ll show you who Victor is to me, too._

Yuuri hears no music as he starts skating, or better, _dancing:_ there’s a fluidity in his movements that he never felt before, or rather, never so strongly. Knowing the program better than he knows himself, Yuuri hops from one train of thought to the other, memories of his months with Victor flashing wildly before his eyes: all the training, the arguing, the apologizing, _I love you,_ a bronze medal, then a silver, _you want me to stay,_ and now, he knows, the four words he can never speak aloud, because it’s-

_hand down on the final quadruple flip_

-no, actually-

_you can’t have him after all_

-it doesn’t mean anything-

_it’s wrong, wrong, wrong_

 

“Maybe I never wanted to be right after all.”

 

Yuuri realizes he’s spoken aloud after the cheers of the crowd reach his ears: he drops his final pose and skates back to the barrier, shaking his head. He can feel Victor's arms around him, stopping him from putting his blade guards on: then, he can slide them on, and walk to the kiss and cry, face blank, eyes focused somewhere he can’t see.

“Yuuri, you were _great,_ you put a lot of passion into it! I’m so proud,” says Victor, and he’s beaming, squeezing Yuuri’s arm then hugging him again, from the side, as Yuuri’s eyes are still unfocused, his mind struggling to stay in place. “Your presentation score is going to push you in the hundreds, I’m sure! That was-”

As always, Victor is right: Yuuri’s score, not his personal best but quite close, brings him back from his reverie, and he cracks a smile, registering only in part the praise Victor is showering him with.

_So what will you do now?_

“We should go to the stands,” he says, effectively silencing Victor. “I want to see Yurio’s short program.”

Standing up, Victor chuckles, and sets the bottle and tissue holder on the nearest chair, to remove his gloves. Yuuri watches, still breathing heavily, as the gloves slide off long, elegant fingers, and he’s hit somewhere in his ribcage by another familiar yet unknown sensation. “Yeah, we should.”

Taking his skates off in favour of his sneakers, Yuuri takes a deep breath- again, he thinks, and thinks, _what will I do now?_

 

( _Holding his hand is out of the question._ )

_Please, hold my hand._

 

Their fingers never brush on the way to the stands, where Yuuri asks Victor if he’d like to sit instead of standing, to which he replies, “I want to take a good look- I haven’t seen Yurio’s programs properly in a long time.”

So, Yuuri joins him, their elbows so close it burns.

_What will you skate for in the free? What do you have left?_

Silencing himself, Yuuri inhales as Yuri draws lazy circles on the rink, waiting for his name to be called.

_What is Yurio going to skate for?_

The answer comes swiftly.

The starting notes of _Agape_ reverberate through the stadium, a tight, invisible string that wounds itself around Yuri’s body and pulls him, with movements far more elegant and sharp and sure than Yuuri ever remembers seeing from him. He builds up speed for his first jump, and he raises an arm on the takeoff, landing a clean triple axel: Victor's tongue clicks.

“Is he going to add tanos to every jump?” asks Yuuri, eyes glued to Yuri’s lithe form, sweeping to one side of the rink to the other, charging for the quad salchow, triple toe loop combination- and he proves Yuuri wrong, not adding a tano to this combination, but raising both arms into a Rippon, and does the same on the quad toe loop that follows shortly after.

As the song hits its climax, and Yuri shows off his mastered step sequence with astonishing speed and precision, Yuuri glances at Victor- and promptly wishes he never did.

As Victor looks down at the rink with the hardest expression Yuuri’s witnessed in years of following his career and months of knowing him on a personal level, Yuuri shudders at the clear, very well-known feeling he sees reflected in his eyes: it’s _anger,_ pure and unbridled and ready to burst, at witnessing a former rinkmate break his longtime record with a program Victor choreographed himself, and pushed to the limits to add as many points as possible- and it’s also the burning need to come back, and prove he can still do it, he can best his opponents and take the throne back.

 

( _Please win for me,_ he wants to say. To be selfish again is something that scares Victor to the bone, knowing Yuuri’s reaction to people who demand the world from him: so, he doesn’t say anything.)

(His traitorous mind suggests that saying goodbye is going to be rougher than necessary, without a gold medal: an incapable coach and its problem student, and a sour taste on his lips as he turns his back on the source of all his pain and joy.)

(There’s a part of Victor that thinks, against all odds, _it can’t end here._ )

(For being someone who was allowed to feel love, Victor thinks it’s funny how he can’t simply understand how it works.)

 

It’s only Yuuri’s guess, but the anger is unmistakable, yet fascinating, and Yuuri is drawn to it like a moth to a very bright and sudden light.

_Now I understand what Victor is to you, Yurio._

“Victor,” he breathes through dry lips, and obtains no answer, having no right to dip into Victor's personal ‘ocean’. Yuuri might only guess what Victor is thinking, and from where his anger stems from, but there’s something he knows, that stretches out to his heart and grazes its surface with sharp yet kind claws.

_And I know what I should do._

 

So it blooms.

  


**III - I’ll set you free**

 

In his dream, he overlooks the ocean, dark yet quiet, sunlight peeking through grey clouds: it’s a farewell.

 

When Yuuri opens his eyes, his face scrunches up as he scowls at the ceiling.

It’s the day of the free skate, at last: all the endless run-throughs of his program during the previous day of practice allowed him to clear his mind, and focus on his primary task.

Victor, supportive as ever, never contradicted him once, and praised his choice of changing the difficulty of his program: adding another quadruple jump is a thought Yuuri toyed with at different points through the Grand Prix, yet he never acted on it until now: having conquered the necessary confidence and knowing what he’s skating for, he’s positive he can do it.

If Victor wants to let go after the final, well...

“Ready?” asks Victor as they walk through the corridor, and Yuuri nods, determination painting his eyes a darker shade: when he spots Yuri with Yakov and Lilia, though, Victor sprints past him, and something clicks.

_Oh, right. He hasn’t told them yet._

Before Yuuri can reach Victor, Chris stops him to wish him good luck with the free skate. Talking with Chris is surprisingly easy, he finds, and he wishes him good luck as well: as he walks away, Victor is nowhere to be seen, and a very alarmed-looking Yuri is walking towards him, wide eyes pinning Yuuri to the spot.

“What the fuck, katsudon,” he chokes, stopping maybe a bit too close, forcing Yuuri to take a step back, unsure how to deal with Yuri’s unexpected panic. “What is he thinking!?”

_Of course._

Before Victor can spot them, Yuuri grabs Yuri’s shoulder and pushes him towards the exit, back in the corridor. “We should talk where people can’t hear us,” he explains, and Yuri follows, probably swearing in what sounds like hushed Russian.

As soon as they turn a corner, Yuri kicks at the ground, not even bothering to lace his sneakers. “What the _fuck,_ ” he repeats, raising a hand to his head but stopping before raking it through his hair and ruining the braid. Yuuri finds it endearing, somehow.

“So he told you,” sighs Yuuri, biting his own lip. Yuri scoffs, then pushes Yuuri against the wall by the shoulders, punching the air out of his lungs: his nostrils flare, as the grip on Yuuri’s track jacket weakens ever so slowly.

“He told us he’s sorry, that he’s going to come back, he _apologized_ to me for leaving Russia and breaking our promise,” he says, and Yuuri can’t bear to look him in the eye, opting for casting his gaze to the side and wondering briefly what _promise_ he’s talking about, “and what did you tell him? That he should go? That he has to come back?”

“I haven’t said anything-”

“ _Why aren’t you stopping him!?_ ”

Yuuri would _love_ not to know why he’s letting Victor go. It should be so obvious, to Yuri’s eyes: so obvious, to the boy who pushed him into the right direction.

_Because I…_

“You have to tell him, katsudon.”

Yuri lets Yuuri go, taking a step back, looking almost ashamed by his own outburst. He crosses his arms, nodding at himself, eyes fixed to his own shoes now that Yuuri is looking him in the face. “Tell him. Tell him as soon as you can, because he’s starting to forget and it can’t happen. Don’t fuck around with him.”

Yuri doesn’t allow him to interrupt, to answer, to assure him that yes, he’s going to tell Victor sooner or later- he takes a step forward, again, their noses almost touching, and he’s _pleading,_ ”Don’t fuck around with him, please, he’s different since he met you- please help him.”

“I…”

“I know you feel it too. It’s so obvious.”

The truth is, Yuuri now understands- maybe, he understands a bit too much about the relationship between Victor and Yuri, and he has to restrain himself from hugging Yuri, or telling him it’s going to be fine, Victor will return very soon, because it’s for his sake and Yuri’s sake, too.

“...I do.”

“When are you going to tell him? You can’t let him go. He’s your coach, for fuck’s sake.”

_He’s also my best friend. And..._

“It’s almost your turn. We should go back.”

Yuri snorts, stepping back out of Yuuri’s personal space and cracking a wobbly smirk. “You sound just like him. You’re both idiots.”

Despite himself, Yuuri smiles back.

“I know,” is all he says.

 

“You’re always sneaking off when I need you,” pouts Victor, as Yuuri swallows around the lump in his throat and checks his costume.

“I’ll let you come with me next time.”

Victor doesn’t answer to that, and Yuuri knows exactly why: the proverbial elephant in the room is the second thing in his mind, followed by Yuri’s glares all through the competition. The first thing being...

“It’s time,” he breathes, and Victor nods, following him to the entrance. They stare at each other over the barrier, Yuuri on the ice and Victor off, their hands joined, fingers intertwined.

“You can do it,” says Victor, and Yuuri believes him, nodding, returning his fierce gaze. “Show me your love for skating. Your love for everyone. Show me it’s _worth_ it.”

Yuuri wants to believe Victor's praise fully, he wants to absorb it, let it run through his whole body and dance around it like his partner on the ice: except a giddier feeling is now overtaking his mind. The knowledge that Victor will keep smiling again, and again, and laugh and return to the ice to do what he can do best, following his heart and living for himself, as it should be, is intoxicating: Yuuri never knew that making someone so important happy could make him feel _this_ happy, in return.

It’s a feeling he wants to taste again, as soon as possible.

Fingers clenching between Victor's, Yuuri’s cheekbones pull the corners of his lips up, mouth parting to show the way his tongue peeks between the ridges of his teeth: it’s a delirious smile, he knows-

( _It’s the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen,_ )

-and he tells Victor, untangling his hand from his grasp and drawing closer, noses touching, “you’re free now.”

Perhaps Victor's face falls, or lights up: Yuuri will never know, as he turns around before he can see.

_Forgive me._

The slide of blades on the ice helps him relax, though, and there’s a helpless finality to his movements as his name is called, and he greets the crowd.

 _This is the last time I’m doing this with Victor as my coach,_ he thinks. Moving into his starting position, and as _Yuri on ice_ starts playing, he recalls, hands cupped to his chest, the way Victor's accent danced around his tongue as he explained him the starting choreography all those months ago.

_Look at me, Victor._

Landing the first combination with a flourish, Yuuri cracks a smirk between coordinating arms and legs, shifting from one edge of the blade to the other as he crosses the rink.

_Look at me, and me only._

It’s not the same selfishness he felt skating to _Eros,_ on the day of the short program: it’s different, somehow- it’s more elastic, it morphs, under the guidance of Yuuri’s steps and twirls and another clean jump, followed by the ever-increasing cheers of the crowd.

_You will come back to the ice, and I’ll follow you no matter where you go._

The motions come easily, second nature by now, and Yuuri feels like floating, impossibly light and beautiful and, most importantly, _loved._ Every jump is landed, every subtlety bleeds through his step sequence and the spins and the mere flick of his wrist-

_you told me I could be the most selfish person on Earth, once_

-and he never thinks of his family, or friends, as he skates to his free program- to _Victor's_ free program, holding it close to his heart as he skates to the highs and lows and he blinks back tears of sadness or happiness or fatigue, who knows, as he prepares for the final jump- for _Victor's_ jump.

 

Take off-

_it’s you, it’s always been you, all this time_

-one, two, three, four revolutions-

_forgive me for everything I’ve never done_

-clean landing, and the words he could never bring himself to speak aloud, as he completes his last spin and strikes the final pose, one hand on his heart, the other outstretched towards him, towards Victor, and the small of his back burns, and as the crowd erupts and screams and shouts he gasps, “I love you too.”

 

_I always did._

 

The flashing of the cameras blind him through his tears, as he holds the bouquet in one hand and shows the gold medal with the other. Yuuri only sees Yuri and JJ on the other steps of the podium after the photos are taken, and he returns on the ice with tentative steps, as if he forgot how to skate, legs still shaking.

“You copied me,” spits Yuri, and Yuuri genuinely laughs at that, lower lip still trembling.

“And how is that?”

“I broke Victor's record first,” he explains, looking genuinely upset- yet, a hint of a smirk cuts through. “I’ll break yours too at Worlds.”

Instead of answering with an equally ironic remark, Yuuri sighs and finally winds his arms around Yuri, hugging him maybe a bit too tightly, judging by his scandalized gasp.

“What are you doing, katsudon- _stop it,_ not you too,” he complains, and Yuuri freezes.

“Me too?”

Untangling himself from Yuuri’s arms, Yuri snorts, gaze falling somewhere behind Yuuri, in Victor's direction. “You’re both embarrassing.”

_That is very true._

“Thank you for everything, Yuri,” says Yuuri then, and Yuri perks up at his proper name. It might be a hint of a blush or just exhaustion, painting his cheeks: yet, he clears his throat and blurts out something in Russian, skating off.

As Yuuri follows him and gets off the ice, his breath catches at seeing Victor, a sweet smile on his lips and head tilted to the side.

 _Has he always been so beautiful,_ Yuuri can’t help but think. His mouth hangs open as they meet each other halfway, both the same height thanks to Yuuri’s skates.

“Congratulations on crushing my free skate record and breaking my winning streak,” laughs Victor, hands in his pockets. Yuuri finds himself hoping he’s still not wearing his gloves, for whatever reason.

“You can get your revenge next year.”

Victor raises his eyebrows, as he cracks a sly smile. “So you won’t be afraid of me at Worlds?”

Doing his best to stay on Victor's train of thought, Yuuri chuckles, holding the bouquet tighter.

“I’ll just be happy to see you again.”

Picking up the implication behind Yuuri’s words, Victor averts his eyes, biting his lower lip. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”

_I’m the one who should have told you sooner._

“It doesn’t matter. I… want to tell you something, too.”

Now, Yuuri averts his eyes, too, as the bouquet falls to the ground and he grabs both of Victor's wrists, leading his ungloved hands out of the pockets.

“I want to thank you. For… for everything you’ve done, which is more than I deserved, and- um. I’ll never forget- never forget what you did, for me.”

“Yuuri, calm down,” whispers Victor, voice painted by held-back laughter, and Yuuri mirrors him, perfectly conscious that everyone in the stadium is probably watching: he registers cameras going off, somewhere behind them.

For once, he doesn’t mind.

“Let them all know,” he says aloud, because Victor deserves to know what goes through his mind, at all times, doesn’t matter if he’s giving him a quizzical look, just like he’s doing now. Looking up, Yuuri sees himself reflected in Victor's eyes, the brightest, warmest blue he’s ever seen, and there’s a spark at the base of his spine that pushes him forward, a small step that allows him to breathe the same air as Victor, that finally makes them meet halfway, properly.

_It’s like coming up for air._

“Yuuri?”

He blinks, shaking his head.

“Sorry, I…”

Victor chuckles, again, more nervously: now he noticed the cameras too, the people staring and hoping to catch bits of their hushed conversation. Yuuri can’t bring himself to care, and he exhales, still shaking his head, smiling.

“For a minute there, I lost myself,” he explains, laughing harder- and something flashes in Victor's eyes. Something like surprise.

“What did you just-”

_Now._

Before he can stop himself, before he can think about anything else, Yuuri closes the distance between them.

Victor's hand flies instantly to the small of his back, as Yuuri runs both of his down Victor's chest, stopping where his soulmark is radiating warmth. Their lips slide, push, teeth pulling, tongues running- it’s hasty, and messy, and there are people screaming and whistling and who knows what else, all around them, but Yuuri doesn’t care in the slightest.

When they part, Victor is crying, tears sliding shamelessly down his blushing cheeks. Yuuri wants to tell him, _I’m here, I’m not going anywhere,_ but he knows he has to let Victor go, that he can’t keep him away from the ice if he desires to come back, and that maybe, in one version of their future that will allow it, he’ll be able to help him the best way he can.

“You’re horrible,” says Victor, and Yuuri laughs, kissing him again, and again, and again, until Victor's lips start trembling too much to respond properly.

“I know.”

“We- you can follow me, then, to Russia, we- my apartment is big, Makkachin loves you, I love you too-” Yuuri hides his face in Victor's chest, hugging him closer, “you’re crazy, Yuuri, you don’t know what you’re doing to me-”

“You can tell me everything later,” he says, tears threatening to burst out. “We have all the time in the world, Victor.”

Just like that, the anger inside Yuuri- the _ocean_ from his dreams, blooms.

  


Unbeknownst to him, a single, dark crimson rose buds from the thorny stem painted on his lower back: a perfect match of Victor's.

  


Katsuki Yuuri knows- he’s in love.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's over. atob is over and i feel... idk how i feel. both happy and sad i guess.  
> (how many times did i mention the small of yuuri's back all through the fic?? i can be a sneaky little shit lmao)  
> thank you so much, to all of you, for the love and support you gave me ♥  
> if you'd like to chat or something, i'm on [tumblr](http://flamedahlia.tumblr.com) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/fIamedahlia). i might write something else for this universe, so stay tuned just in case!  
> again, thank you so, so much! see you ♥


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